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.
Wednesday night was Stone Soup's first online open mic ever! We got to meet up again and share our work while maintaining safe distance.There were mistakes made, of course. I didn't think my microphone would be a problem. It was. I now have anew mic to help us next week. I made a few more mistakes and will probably make twice as many next Wednesday. I hope you'll be there to see and hear them.
Writing a poem based off a round robin was interesting. With Stone Soup's usual open mic, one person gets to tell me their story, and that's often it. With a round robin, now a poet that was heard before has a chance to hijack the story a second and even third time around. Just as challenging as an open mic with twenty-plus people on it.
Yes, it's another hot mess of a poem. I'll try to cut down on quarantine poems while everyone's in quarantine. Why remind ourselves? Thanks for reading.
Creative Control
Valhalla is a trailer park,
lawns filled with mementos
of forgotten conquest.
Samples of evolution
stopped before too far,
kept off Asgard's grass,
Only most colorful kept.
Alexander Hamilton can't
speak out, but he can sing.
Creatives lost, candles
reduced to unwanted wax,
feathers tossed in frantic flight,
life expectancy limited
to perfect catchphrase slogan,
single campaign poster.
Families forget them all,
only listen for loyalty oaths,
skimp papers for marching orders.
They search online, election
news, campaign trails,keep
lookout for a new Grand Dad,
put copyright to wounds--
tally lame wings, purple hearts,
broken crowns--build evidence
create disease, hope doctors
search enough of strata
to find medicine in bile.
A pen is not a syringe,
no matter how hard we try.
Sometimes deep too deep.
May our blood come out
acrylic, hearts beat mic drops,
each bone crack a weave's spin.
Open our veins on red line,
will Boston back to lost winter,
take terror train off rails.
Shrink ourselves to size
of fish, disappear between nets,
consider suicide, start new end.
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| Learning as we go along. Next week, I'll write down an ope mic sheet. |
Special thanks to Chris Robbins, E.S., Phil Hasouris, Bil Lewis, Jason Wright, April Penn, Andrew Borne and Black Byrd.
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