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.
Jeff Taylor had a great feature on Wednesday. A short but lively open mic. A poem by James Van Looy gave me an idea for this week's poem even before Jeff Taylor started his set. It was one of those ideas where instinct tells me, I have to have a better idea than this! A day later, and my brain goes, No, you don't. So you better make this work.
So here's the poem based on that idea, inspired by my morning commute. Don't know if it's good, but the idea to create a day in the lives of two fictional characters was my idea. Don't know if you'll see them again. Thanks for reading.
Adventures in Southie
Jim Jerusalem, freelance hero,
and his trusty dog America
patrol their Dot Ave route
for anything they can act on.
It's a school morning.
Jim hits up the local market.
America waits outside,notes
the black boys and girls walking by.
America can't smell intent
as boy and girl taunt each other
about wanting to fuck outside
on their neighbors' fictional lawn.
Inside, Jim waits in line
with his cheap cup of coffee.
By the door, the biggest deli guy
serves as bouncer and sentry,
lets black kids go in, two at a time,
eyes the aisles for shoplifters.
The cashier talks with the old townie
about how things are quieter
since the section eight housing
was knocked down this summer.
But it's being rebuilt. They'll be back,
says the cashier. They'll be back.
Jim and America leave,
surveillance complete, veer off
their morning path, turn right
to the scene of the hate crime.
Construction site on hold for winter,
Jim lets America lick his hand
for warmth, enough for a cut
to flow blood, a few drops to hit
the barren ground behind the fence.
He wants something in the soil, hopes
it will Johnny Appleseed grow
into something for change.
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| We are family. |
Special thanks to Black byrd, Julia Vogel, James Van Looy and Jeff Taylor.
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