Friday, March 12, 2021

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION - Stone Soup Croutons, 3-10-21: Who Mutes the Noisemakers?


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.

Timothy Gager's reading was amazing. After him reading from his 2020 Poems collection, I don't need to hear about 2020 anymore. Pity we don't have a choice in that matter, with the one year anniversary of you-know-what this week. So here's my own version on looking back on that wonderful mindset that got us where we are today. That's what it kinda sorta started as. Not sure what it is now. Oh, well. Thanks for reading.


Who Mutes the Noisemakers?

Broken dreams boulevard
had street sign taken down.
Who does that? The system
has truly crashed. Hold on!

New day stopped download.
Please hold while we wait 
for the dog to move where
the spirit wags its tail.
Face down in ashes. 
Welcome to the new wait
for a day to die, endless
as a child's summer afternoon.

Joy becomes a five-letter word
so you can better contain
it's increased shelf life. 
Old dreams out of the museum.

Beware. The unexamined life
is ready for you, bunkered
on a one-way hill, 
coughing from lack of vax.

It's row or wade for them.
They paddle with hands,
oars cast aside, don't believe
in outside help. 

Weakened warriors lie 
like rakes about to hit own face.
Rabbits nibble at leaves 
used as camouflage.

Armchair privates 
ready for health givers
to come and take away
their right to die. 

All imagine a fart-like
suicide blaze, refuse
to countenance another
at their empty counters.

Burn it with a bleach bomb.
Smells like scorched earth
relief, a perfect canvas. Leap
off cliff equals long distance thinking.

Only rules: Never repent,
never confess what everyone
already knows. Sun will not
refuse to set for dogged of war.

Last name on lips, already 
killed, high on liquid caffeine
eucharist, time to hurry. Heaven
is a hotel, vacancy for uber-worthy.

Come back to read next time, Jan!

Special thanks to Jon Wesick, Jan Rowe, Bil Lewis, Ethan Mackler, Carol Weston, Ed Gault, Nancy Dodson, John Stickney, James Van Looy and Timothy Gager.



No comments: