Stone Soup Croutons, 12-17-25: One Man's Aggressive Nirvana

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 held Stone Soup's first online workshop this past Wednesday. I think it went well and hope to talk even less whenever the next one happens.

I'm grateful to everyone agreeing to be recorded for the workshop. It's actually interesting recapping statements I made about other people's poems. It's funny how a good chunk of what I said out loud actually went into the poem below. 

So yeah, the secret's out. Sometimes I listen to someone's work and then make shit up.

 

Now you know how I do it. That's something, right? 

This is technically the last Crouton poem for the year, because this is in all likelihood the last gathering of the y ear. If I'm lucky--and I haven't been so far--I hope to catch up with the weeks from July to December that I missed. 

I hope you all enjoy your holiday time however you spend it. 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

One Man's Aggressive Nirvana

 

I have a black

belt in karate 

and cah-ray-zay.

How's that for

enlightenment?

Who's your Daddy?
Whoever's name 
you said is wrong.

I'm your Daddy 

now. Understand? 

Let me cook a 

meal for you. I

was not asking.

Even my box pasta
sends Ramsey crying.

Debate me! I an
list America's crimes

alphabetically.

Then I'll explain why

we'll be acquitted again.

I know how to 

drastically reduce

your carbon foot.

Just let mew stick my 

hand down your throat.

 

I'm not turning 

into a  monster.
You're turning.

You're becoming small

enough for me to crush.

My best advice 

is never meet 

heroes and killers.

Sometimes I'm both.

Sometimes I'm neither.

This is my good

side. The other 

has good points too.

Leave, die, or both. You're 

the traveler, I'm the wood.

 

 

 

Special thanks to Jon Wesick, Bil Lewis, Robert Fleming, Robert Fleming, James Van Looy, Ana Geoffrey, Nike Truth, Silent E and Mary Jennings.