Stone Soup Croutons, 7-24-17, Dead Dad

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions butchered picked up from poems overheard from Stone Soup's open mic readers and features. I figure out a title (and sometimes the rest of the poem) later. You can read the other ones I've done since 2015 here. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, this poem doesn't go up because it's ready, it goes on because it's Tuesday morning.

Last night's workshop was cut short because of a band hovering over us to get in and set up as early as humanly possible. Still, we had the open mic. Here's what resulted from it. Special kudos to David Agee for reading the work of Djuna Barnes on the open mic. The poems of her that he read helped influence the title.


Dead Dad

You spend more time
to sop and squeeze the thorns,
your senses so dulled
this is what it takes

to remember your first
divorce, spread out over
multiple lovers, bank accounts,
court dates.

You're immune to
your own acid, which makes
any baseless tongue
turn and run.

Your bones creak when on
the phone. It makes you believe
even stone can fold
under ceaseless complaints.

Your life uprooted
again, you fear a lack
of seed needed
to start again.

The dogs leave you
to the scraps, dig a hole
for you to stand and spin
while you still live.


(Apologies for forgetting to photograph the open mic sheet with me this week)


Bil Lewis, Lee Varon, Julie F.,  Deb Priestly, Martha Boss, Chris Fitzgerald, David Agee and James Van Looy.