SAFE DISTANCE EDITION - Stone Soup Croutons, 11-25-20: Thanksgiving Wars (News from the Front)

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

I also have a book out now collecting the best of my first year of poems. Click here to purchase it.

Stone Soup gathered the night before Thanksgiving. It was a fun night, much needed before the holiday stress of the past 24 hours. My own Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. The night before, however, I was fueled with the words from various people in the superspreader movement declaring war on safety and public health. That no doubt fueled my thought. Then there was all the talk about Hitler and death on the mic. I'm sure that helped. In a good way. Really. 

 

Warning: This poem is going to sound a bit like my other crouton poem, "Fish on a Bicycle Pulpit" from my new book. Mostly because Bil Lewis read my poem as part of the open mic and I didn't realize it until he finished. Thanks to Bil for buying my book, and thanks to you for reading. Hope you enjoyed your time yesterday.

Thanksgiving Wars

News from the front

Racist barbers try

to bring back 

Hitler's mustache

have concentration camps

pose for holiday photos.

 

What is the value 

of mountains

if you can't see

anyone beneath you?

Raze the highland

below buildings,

everything just tall enough

to make them bow.

Young eat old,

hide evidence

of own language.

You must kill angels

for this year's feast.

The dead are not 

allowed to expatriate 

themselves from Earth 

then come back for jobs.

Save gratitude when

this dying earth 

has been inherited,

sedition against weak.

A true man needs

a sustainable world

like a bee needs 

a second sting,

or a fish needs a

bike path, or a whale

needs its own blubber,

or a suicide needs

an incriminating note.

The Christmas preparation

party will continue

until morale or 

mortality improves.

 

 

 

Special thanks to Jon Wesick, David Miller, Bil Lewis, Nancy Dodson, Jan Rowe, John Stickney and James Van Looy.