Friday, September 07, 2018

Stone Soup Croutons, 9-6-18, Life During War On Christmastime



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 Friday morning.

Last night, Stone Soup had its usual open mic, but no feature. K. Peddlar Bridges was supposed to show up but didn't. The man has never missed a reading before. Still, it was raining quite a bit yesterday, and he rides a motorcycle. I'm a bit worried.

I haven't heard from him yet. That's Probably the reason why the poem is not as mirthful as others have been (however darkly). Blame it on the return of Ed "Gentleman" Gault to the open mic with his poem about forced joy during the holidays. Got me started. So it's a poem about Christmas written in the month of September. Even if it isn't mirthful, it's still goofy. Thanks for reading. I'll put an update here if I hear from Peddlar.

Edit: I changed it from "Christmas Time to Christmastime." Should have checked the spelling of the Talking Heads song I'm riffing before I posted.

Further Edit:  Peddlar is okay. Found not long after posting this.



Life During War On Christmastime

Happiness is postponed
for a season, as no one can get it right.
as joyless as a one mic karaoke
of your local church's music.

No festive dishes. No loud turn
of the new year. Drink your tea
in a mug as white as the chalk
your drink tastes like sans peppermint.

All pageants banned this eve.
No refugee stories of immigrant havens,
intellectual welfare, taxpayer's gold
and fake news single mom virgins.

The president works on your day off,
puts the red phone by the tree.
Let's put the Christ in C-rations,
the X back in safe houses on your map.

Angry exposition pollutes
your night-before verse,
anticipating silent rage
the day after when you clean
dying old men's messes.

Find out who's fired now,
workers breaking bones
sliding down the wrong side
of black ice wonderland.

You're more likely to find
secret presents in the snarls
of your unshaven face
than to expect a stag to track
you down, lie at your door.

Use the bag of unwashed
laundry, lean against it
until your head dances visions
of meaningful labor.


It was a holly jolly open mic!

Special thanks to Ed Gault, Chris Fitzgerald, Erik Nelson, John Lane, Jan Rowe, Carol Weston, Michael Igoe, Martha Boss and James Van Looy. 


1 comment:

Unknown said...


Thank you, Chad, this brings us together even more