SAFE DISTANCE EDITION: Stone Soup Croutons, 5-1-20, May Day Pandemic Pandemonium

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 Monday morning.

Friday was an amazing celebration of Stone Soup's 49th anniversary! That's why the Crouton poem is coming out a bit late. I thank everyone for attending that night.  I loved the new faces. I love that those new faces were introduced to Carol Weston, who has been recovering from an injury but still wanted to participate. James Van Looy closed us out with a poem May Day during the pandemic. I decided to go with that too. Am I a thief? Maybe, but at least my title's goofier.

Also, I did jump forward in time to thank about everyone whipping their masks off for the first warm weekend in months.

Its a crazy time. Glad you're all part of it. Thanks for reading.


May Day Pandemic Pandemonium

It takes less than a village
to keep you in your fishbowl,
disdaining the sun more
than a New England Spring.

You rotate slightly faster than
your rugs. You will own this
apocalypse.  Maybe you'll even
shout to neighbors from window.

Somewhere, a troubled daughter
waits for a too-late atonement.
A street could use some feeding.
A second home could be cleaned.

The nurses don't even have time
to recognize each incoming patient
before both are gone, bound for
their skyward debutante ball.

There goes somebody's ride
to and from other essentials.
Even the strongest girl on paper
can flinch, shy away from duty.

Wayward fathers lose custody
battles with themselves, share
lonely shore with gulls, move
into silence for first time ever.

Where were you when you missed
marital law? Busy baring face
to the sky's first seasonal fire,
huddling among the frozen food?

Head for the ocean shore. Nothing
but Leonardo's copied sketchbooks
to ensure one's survival off-land,
nothing even tested in a pool.

Amazing anarchists make their
manifestos on buses, sneak their
sneezes in the faces of Walmart
managers that peek up from bunkers.

Black sheets to the face, all beers
for the road, they free everyone's pain
from in front of America's green screen,
dream's special effect budget blown.

We check each other's pulse on Zoom.
What day is it? Did weekend roll back
up? Time to cut the budget, our pay?
They'll run it up the maypole again.

So many people. Please come back if I missed you. Sorry I forgot to write you down, James!

Special thanks to Erik Nelson, David Miller, Chris Warner, Jim Behrle, April Penn, Black Byrd, Ed Gault, Erik Tate, Michael Patrick McSweeney, Shannon O'Connor, Toni Bee, Erin Reardon, Georgia Park, Jim Dunn, Thomas Gagnon, Bil Lewis, Peter Storey, Douglas Bishop, Dexter Roberts, Nadia Garofalo, Susie Davidson, Carol Weston, Stephan Anstey, Mary Jennings, Adam Wise, Ethan Mackler, Jason Wright, Jan Rowe and James Van Looy.