Stone Soup Croutons, 1-15-20, Sit-In

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked 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.

Terry Orlando Jones rocked the house on Wednesday night with the help of guest DJ Amina Gunn and guitarist/percussionist Joe P. I knew there was going to be too much to jot down, so I not only recorded parts of their set (including a jam with Black Byrd I wish I had gotten more of) but also took audio snippets of the open mic. It helped at least to make sure no one to left out. What to do with it all? Well, that was the challenge. It's up to you to judge if I was successful or not. That means hits, shares and all that. No, I won't be this shameless for the rest of the year.

I am so glad we had such a great night of music. Our musical guests took full advantage of our new home at the Assemblage gallery with its great acoustics. We simply have to do it again. I hope more people will come next time.

I should also mention that Terry, Amina and Joe will be performing the same set this Saturday as part of Dorchester Speaks. It starts at 2.00 PM at the Codman Square branch of the Boston Public Library.

Poem time. Thanks for reading.


Sit-In

Oliver Wendell Holmes implores us:
Save the USS Constitution! For without her,

the country would have been divided
the document its named after useless

hundreds of year earlier than now. And today?
Outside, expatriated from each other,

on a train outbound for cliff's edge. First aid
thrown out en route. No one heals for free.

Don't try to read the tea leaves for our future.
They're actually ash, embers from unknown lost.

They want to bring back Michelangelo, force him
to change God's finger from index to middle

while having him cut paper doll clothing
to cover everyone in and out of the garden.

Mothers and daughters afraid to speak to each other,
information bubbles broke only by sniper fire. Inside,

drums turn slow to quick. Ivory tickles the elephant
even heart's king and queen won't address first.

All key vowels and consonants come together
until they unlock the letters we've waited for.

Terry, Amina ad Joe.

Terry, Amina and Joe in Black and White

You should have been there!

Special thanks to Bil Lewis, A.J. Odasso, David Miller, Chris Fitzgerald, Black Byrd, James Van Looy, Amina Gunn, Joe P. and Terry Orlando Jones.