Stone Soup Croutons, 7-26-18, Trump's Ascension

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked up from poems overheard 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 afternoon.

We had our Stone Soup open mic this past Thursday. I was happy with how many came because moving has taken away all my time to advertise. I also had my laptop crash, so I 'm using my untested spare to post for today.

It was a pleasant open mic, and later that night my girlfriend came home from her trip to Paris. so naturally I had to stick Trump in the poem! Don't ask me why. Thanks for reading.


Trump's Ascension

His fifteen stages of the New Cross
all take you through holy Mother Russia,

a dictator at each station for every one
of his falls--by intention, theologians claim.

School cafeterias are hereby required
to host last suppers every day at lunch.

There's rats in the wafers, left to crouton.
Baskets charge well for his rump roast flesh.

First sermon stars the New England Patriots
versus several legions of Miami Dolphins.

Players walks on and over a neon blue sea.
It's named the beating of the five thousand.

His gospel left to country music, he mistakes
the phrase "without sin" for "without scene."

At last he reaches for unbroken bread,
wishes it could turn back into stone.

We miss you, James Van Looy!

Special thanks to Vincente Brothers, Michael Igoe, David Miller, Chris Fitzgerald, Laurel Lambert, Vicki Poulos, John Lane, Erik Nelson and Steve Warren.