Another open mic happened last night. More people are coming, and I'm starting to get the feeling that this new location could work for Stone Soup. This week's poem is still dark, though. Maybe I'm still upset that I screwed up when I posted " Random Acts of Penitence" last Friday and used the word "pertinence" in the title instead. It's corrected now, and I like my made up word for this week's title. That was intentional. Thanks for reading.
Treadbare
What is more terrifying,
crocodile at the zoo
or mosquitoes in your room,
quality or proximity,
argument made meaningless
as all addicts wake to both
gnawing flesh and limb
while you pray for the sun
to turn Vantablack,
or you turn on partners
on your sheetless beds,
any enemy who can't save you.
Illness turns you bedpan tyrant,
half-bananas in freezer
into weapons for a ceasar's back.
Fever makes you believe
anyone feeling murderous
can remake America.
Do the destitute ever have
favorite presidents besides
Lincoln or Kennedy?
Do you favor James Garfield
who could likely relate
to the shotgun firing in your gut?
They hear honey locust, you hear
bees and locusts coming
to harmonize with head's ringing.
So many scars, no one thought
you could ever bleed again.
So they cut you free, left you
by the last shelter you could stand
in line for. Neil Young music
plays inside, "Change Your Mind."
Lyrics mock while you watch from afar
your body do what it's forced to,
wonder when choice returns.
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| Sadly, "Josh Josh" didn't feel like reading. Maybe next week. |
Special thanks to Bil Lewis, Lee Varon, John Lane, David Miller, Jan Rowe, Martha Boss, Chris Fitzgerald, Nancy Messom, James Van Looy John Galloway, Carol Weston and Laurel Lambert.
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