Stone Soup Croutons, 1-10-24: Keep Moving

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions selected 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 a book collecting the best of my first year of poems. Click here to purchase it.

 

Stone Soup returned this past Wednesday! It was exciting to be back. Now I'm getting used to having a deadline again. The poem turned into a New Year's piece I had no time and energy to write on New Year's Eve. 

Robert Fleming not only gave an inspired feature of words and visuals, he also inspired a very inspired open mic. A lot of current events and past tragedies seeped in. How could they not? I did my best to honor the feature and the other readers with this week's poem. 

 

I'm very glad Stone Soup's first feature hit it out of the park. I hope it inspires the open mic for the rest of the year. Definitely buy Robert's book white noir.

 

Thanks for reading.

Keep Moving

Soon, even halfway homes,

coffee shops, handouts of 

food, outlawed on paper.

 

Not even a patch of land to

roll you into. The contract

for your hit is already out.

 

No wait for snow to melt.

Even where you went to 

forget, already forgotten. 

 

Ex post facto blasphemies

tagged on. Your all ex-human,

bumping into each other.

 

No tinsel-in-a-kitten-factory
chance of running naked 

again. They have pills for that.

The red light district moved

to your library, left behind 

in empire's rear view mirror.

Can't bury yourself in ground.

The muscles you build digging

only make you more edible. 

Run with the wind. Carry out

yourself like a fairy tale critter

or a cat in between landings. 

You just might survive for a 

little longer, find a place where

they haven't settled in yet.

 

Special thanks to Robert Fleming, Bryan Franco, Jan Rowe, Nancy Dodson, Bil Lewis, Jon Wesick and James Van Looy.