Stone Soup Croutons, 12-10-25: Apocalypse and Chill

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.

  

I'm back doing this. I've missed months of work but I have to get back to the weekly grind.

 

It was easy this week thanks to feature Anna Geoffroy. She made it fun. Listen and watch if you don't believe me.

 

Instead of playing the video back the next day, I was able to take notes of everyone who was on the mic while moderating for the first time in a while. It felt good to multitask. 

 

I even had the title before Anna was done.  

 

I'm out of practice big time. I'm just happy to be at this again. 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Apocalypse and Chill

 

Hear your childhood
in the supermarket aisle. 

 

Never hear "Roadrunner"

in the Stop & Shop. 

 

Those who wear white

shoes here--deserve to

 

be tread over by carts,

mad Russians at helms

 

pushing through as if they 

own the market and all  

 

the condos above it,

an eye on your home. 
 

Meanwhile, sales pitches

speak power to truth

 

so we buy sans concern,

fit frozen glaciers in carts,

 

hope they'll fit in freezer

or last in the cupboards,

 

leap for self-checkout

like Butch and Sundance. 

 

Lobster cell phone cases

beg for an impulse buy. 

 

Not in in love with modern

world, just listen to it talk

 

then head home--sounds more 

old fashioned than the old--

 

Must choose: accept chaos,

cook anything jsut bought

 

or  go full manic pixie

girl takeout with partner

 

among the icebergs, breathe 

while America's pulse strives 

 

to slow down, like fish on bike

yearns to make it downhill. 

 

 

 

Special thanks to Shannon O'Connor, Jan Rowe, Bil Lewis, Richard Spisak, Jackie Chou, Robert Fleming, Jon Wesick, Ethan Matthew, Nike Truth and James Van Looy.