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.
We had another all-open mic last night. My personal challenge for this week was prompted by John Lane who last week mentioned during the open mic that he was getting tired of writing poems about poetry. As someone who's written more than a few of those myself, I could sympathize.
On one had, what else is an unheard poet in America going to write about? On the other hand, it was a nice challenge to take up. This poem started to take form as a poem about poetry, but I took a hard no and steered it toward...something else. Thanks for reading.
Outreach
Welcome as a shipless mast
on a busy street in India.
Impeccably dressed
for a pity party of none.
Skin on hands and knees
dragging off drumsticks.
You can only speak tongues
others long refused to learn.
Head rings same way I-Ching
rings from one ear through other.
Heart about to burst open
in bulldog yelp, also ignored.
The God of compassion is
a dentist, hand stuck in mouths.
Neck stiff as propped fossil.
Tourists make own berth
around your beggar bowl body,
its flailing a tuned-out peace march.
There's a No Touching sign
handwritten in the dry air above.
Citizens and senators-to-be
rehearse their faux outrage,
will fight to be first to ask
where you are seconds after death.
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| You know there's a first-timer when the number 1 spot's filled! |
Special thanks to Caryn Luchetti, Meg Eckles, Jan Rowe, Jennifer Lippay ,Gawaine Ross, John Lane, Laurel Lambert, Martha Boss, Marty Levin, Yvonne and James Van Looy.
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