Friday, December 25, 2020

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION - Stone Soup Croutons, 12-23-20: Christmas in Coppertown


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 an award nominated book out now collecting the best of my first year of poems. Click here to purchase it. 

It was my feature this Wednesday! My first feature in a long time. I'm glad I get to write a poem and publish it on Christmas Day. Even if it isn't a traditional Christmas poem. Even if it's tone is slightly darker, The feeling I get after I finish writing it is fantastic. I am grateful to the Stone Soup community for giving me the opportunity. Oh, and if you want to know why I came up with my copper idea, you'll have to hear the whole open mic. And also thank Toni Bee. 
 
Thanks to your for reading, and enjoy the rest of your day.


Christmas in Coppertown
 
Odometers can't turn back time.
The dropping of the all
can't be avoided.
 
Your last relative is a stump
with no flying fig 
left to give.

Sit down and she'll show you
the spirit of Christmas 
in a handful of splinters.

Swastikas land like snowflakes
in most unusual areas,
no two liking each other.
 
Smiles as rare to find 
a town of kicked pumpkins 
post-Halloween.
 
The air is contagious
with lawlessness, 
wider than three miles.
 
Stray cats learn to fight
southpaw in case they
have to eat one leg.
 
The sleigh is the best way
to stay off the highway,
avoid neighborhood watch.
 
T?he black has everyone
in it, some more times
than others. 

The Copper Man returns,
stays far from third rail,
afraid to lay hands.

Man continues to compete
with the universe
to grow even smaller.

It closes in on our 
superconductor messiah
just trying to grab a meal
 
before he rides the rails
like an acoustic bridge,
hands loose of city's neck.


{No list this week, as Bil Lewis was kind enough to run the open mic this week.)

Special thanks to Bil Lewis, David Miller, Mignon Ariel King, Jon Wesick, Carol Weston, Nancy Dodson, Jan Rowe, Patricia Carragon, Toni Bee, C.C. Arshagra, James Van Looy and Ethan Mackler.

2 comments:

Alicia Viguer-Espert said...

I shouldn’t like men competing with the universe in getting smaller, but I do, as well as Swastikas not two liking each other. They’re great lines.

Toni Bee said...

Merry Christmas Chad - Excellent feature