SAFE DISTANCE EDITION: Stone Soup Croutons, 8-5-20: You Suicide Poets

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked 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.

Came back with an all-open mic this week. It felt good. So happy to see a lot of people stop by. Some people came on due to news of the loss of John "Buddah" Pirolli. Though I didn't know him very well, my research on his life led me to this poem. While looking up Fire of Prometheus, I came across this old article by Mick Cusimano, which contained this haunting phrase:

I didn't believe it until I saw it up close, but for some poets the driving ambition in their life is to lose at all costs. Heaven help the person who stands in the way of their failure.

I thought about that statement a lot. For all the fun we had Wednesday, this is what led to the poem I wrote for today.

I know nothing about the life of John Pirolli (who apparently lived peacefully in Acton for years with family after his time in the scene), but a lot of stories about poets in Boston during the 70's and 80's allude to a mostly forgotten time when self-sabotage and a collision course for disaster seemed to be the sole qualifying character traits of the Boston poet. There have been train wrecks on the poetry scene since (I was probably one of them for a while), and there will continue to be. I just hope we don't see an era quite like this ever again.

I like it when poets succeed. A lot of poets I come into contact with on the open mic seem to be doing well, despite the crazy times. I hope that continues to be a trend in life. Thanks for reading.


You Suicide Poets 

Don't need to start a party
for it to turn disaster. but it helps.

Go drop a Enola Gay while others
fall silent dreaming of Hiroshima.

Chase most inappropriate phrase
like it’s a rabbit in the desert.

See book in Buddha’s hands
reading it on the road, buy it back.

Scurry with rats in the cellar, line floors
with rest of unsold words, share cage.

Time verse to unset mended bones
that creak like broken coffee tables.

Run between radio waves, stay unheard,
out-transcend transcendentalists.

Look at site post tropical storm, say hold
my beer, with no one near, no alcohol.

Hijack picnics to share cluttered minds,
mourn old mothers, miss stern fathers.

Pray for downhill ride to be bumpy,
more rocks for river journey please.

Beat morning to break, bang metal
drum brimmed with inner thinner.

Walk towards dusk to own peace,
a mayday horn in your head.

Tattered paper. Need a new notepad. Jane only came to listen after all.

Special thanks to Patricia Carragon, Jon Wesick, Bil Lewis, Ryan "Ratt" Travis, Ethan Mackler, Carol Weston, Peter Crowley, Joshua Corwin, Nancy Dodson, Erik Tate, Erik Nelson, Mary Jennings, Tina Lee, Philip Curtis, E.S. Krystal McPhaul, Tzynya Pinchback, Ed Gault and James Van Looy.