Friday, January 08, 2021

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION - Stone Soup Croutons, 1-6-21: Incognito War Journal


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

I also have an award nominated book out now collecting the best of my first year of poems. Click here to purchase it. 
 
On top of everything else that happened on Wednesday, Mignon Ariel King featured. That was the happy highlight of the entire week, celebrating a friend's birthday through her work. Pretty sneaky, sis!

So how do you write a poem after a day like that and a feature like Mignon's? You don't. You quit like a bitch, give it almost two days to stir and finally admit defeat. Then you write something anyway. That's okay because that describe my writing process for nearly every scenario. Won't say that I did my best. I'll just say that I finished. Time to go and try again. Thanks for reading.


Incognito War Journal

Hitler has bits of children in his mustache.
You mock this, preserve yourself in satire,
hope it will keep you flame retardant. 

God is driving, but the devil steers from 
the backseat. He convinces the three kings
they should curio shop for monkey's paws.

This just in. Any voting machine without 
a loyalty oath or a national anthem for it's 
screensaver will now be under suspicion. 

Bosses bob heads to private fighting songs.
They send you home with blessings, and 
you wince. The masters are pleased. 

Ride home on the horse with the most 
of you still tied to it. Ride to the place
that contains the most of you left. 

Home in this four-horse spread country,
backstory between torn bits. While you sleep, 
Goddess dreams of creating own suffrage.

Jarred brain dreams of saving pieces 
of your left behind furniture before moving
forward, beach turtled tank keeping self intact.

Watch your way through lightning storms
like a war correspondent. Wear your mask
as you did before the fallout, like a soldier.

Swear you will one day meet the dawn 
on your own terms, in a time zone of your 
choosing, geography as three-o'clock high. 


Copied down James Van Looy's name twice because...I could?

Special thanks to Jon Wesick, Carol Weston, Ed Gault, Jan Rowe, Ethan Mackler, James Van Looy, and Mignon Ariel King.

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