Friday, June 14, 2019

Stone Soup Croutons, 6-13-19, He buys her smokes and she burns him new eyes,



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.

Gloria Monaghan had a great feature last night. You can see video from last night here. I got there late due to work just as Laurel Lambert kicked off the open mic and hit the ground writing. This is what I have on a day where I have to be in multiple places at once.

The title ends in a comma. That is intentional. Last Sunday at our regular workshop, Ron was mulling over a poem of mine and wondered if I should put a comma in the title of another poem, adding that he had never seen it done before. I didn't do that in the workshop poem, but I'm trying it here just for the challenge. Thanks for reading. 


He buys her smokes
and she burns him new eyes,

the poor balloon boy,
pushover now pushed
right into the gutter.

All while the rats
gnaw his stretched limbs,
keep pace with his heart.

Sewer bugs hit hard,
throw him back down
like burnt brown bullets.

Lurking crocodiles
take pity on anything
not an active alpha.

Their teeth in his neck
as they pull him away
feel like locks of love.

His deflated feet
mermaid fins in water,
hooked on new fate.




Everyone's shy this week.

Special thanks to Laurel Lmabert, Gawaine Ross, John Lane, Shannon O'Connor, Matthew Callaway, E.S., Martha Boss, Julia Vogel, James Van Looy and Gloria Monaghan. 



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