Stone Soup Croutons, 8-2-18, Swallow

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 morning.

Another Thursday, another Stone Soup, another small summertime open mic. Often a larger open mic with many poets reading gives me a slim chance to find more ways for poems and themes to connect. Other times, the poems are few and the poem comes off as more all over the place. This may one of those moments, but I liked the challenge. Thanks for reading.


Swallow

Hair drapes like willows
weighted after a strong rain.

Each phone call a gun going off,
you tell yourself not to flinch,

hope nothing is large enough
to drag you from the mountains

you can only reach in dream.
Only a loss of breath stops you.

Search for a hand on your mouth,
but it was you catching yourself

before you throw off whatever mess
that's coated onto  your tongue.

Then something halts you, reminds
you again: freestyle isn't free.

The strong poets of summer.

Special thanks to John Bergstrom, Martha Boss, Laurel Lambert, Carol Weston, Nancy Messom and Dexter Roberts.