Friday, March 05, 2021

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION - Stone Soup Croutons, 3-3-21: In Session


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. 

Another all-open mic, but next week the features start again! I appreciate of the group that gathers no matter how little I offer or how late I post information.

Speaking of offering little? Here's the poem. Sorry. But this was written quickly this morning. If I had to guess the poem's meaning--and your guess is probably better than mine--I'd say it was influenced by my last couple of weeks on the job, coupled with the teachers (of which my girlfriend is one) returning to the classroom. At least that's what I figured before adding a title at the end. Thanks for reading.


In Session

Next to eight-year-olds, teachers 
handle roaches more easily. Those kills 
don't make permanent record.

All names unpronounceable 
scrawled for one night 
in moonscape parchment.

Small creatures mark their time
of birth daily, unsure about lasting
to annual anniversary.

The ones with zero income pay most
in flesh, a scalded knee complexion
 on bodies small enough to be stomped

by well-meaning prayers. 
They write their own eulogies  
in refrigerator art scrawl. 

Curtains don't draw together,
they march over little bodies. 
Squirrels scurry nearby, know

something happened, can't figure
out what. Teachers and truck drivers
would offer same distant consolation.

In their sleep, guard dogs bite at what
they can't see. The master's enemies are
everywhere. Nowhere is just a blind spot

they gnash wildly at with each breath.
Confessions of crimes lie in the sky,
just wait to be collected by the paranoid.

,Coleen Houlihan didn't read, but she will return.

Special thanks to Bil Lewis, Erik Tate, Ed Gault, Carol Weston, Jan Rowe, Nancy Dodosn, Ethan Mackler, C.C. Arshagra and James Van Looy.

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