Stone Soup Croutons, 5-25-18, The Reveal

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions 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 up because it's Saturday morning.

It's good to be back. Ryan Travis and Ethan Mackler brought down the house for Stone Soup's last Friday gig in a while. As reported earlier, Stone Soup will stay at St. Paul's Cathedral from 6:30 to 8:30 PM but go back to Thursdays nights. Stone Soup finished its Friday cycle in style, with a very haiku-heavy open mic due to Ryan's "Haiku of Horror"feature. Haiku even got into my poem more than a little, both intentionally and unintentionally. Thanks for reading.


The Reveal

Dippy trippy rhyme scheme,
country band can't find
rhyme for America.

Oranges are as
American as America
in American poetry,

"orange" at the end
of unfinished sonnet stanzas,
cause ivy league shootings.

Bumper stickers
too brutally brisk
for good haiku:

How is my poetry
Dial 617...
number trails off.

Warning: this haiku
does not mean I'm driving
a Japanese car. 

America still thinks wars
have the best music.
The fear draws attention,

A jump scare before
the laugh, a repugnant scent
to every perfume,

butterflies in stomach
before the viola
sets them to flight.

The world is too big
to look for any love
that simply exists. 

We either go out,
find religion before
it chops down our door.

Or we stand waiting,
wait for the kaiju
to trash our city.

Then we'll compose
our still-alive anthems
enjoy unhindered stars.

I challenged my open micers and didn't put numbers on the sheet. As Bill's entry shows, they did not disappoint.

Special thanks to Erik Nelson, David Miller, Martha Boss, Chris Fitzgerld, Nancy Messom, Bil Lewis, Lindsay Travis, Holly Travis, Laurel Lambert, James Van Looy, Ryan Travis and Ethan Mackler.