SAFE DISTANCE EDITION - Stone Soup Croutons, 4-28-21: Let Loose (to Michael Collins)

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.

National Poetry Month is about to end. David Leo Sirois helped us close out the month beautifully. For all of David's lyrical words and impeccable presentation, I had to go and do a poem mixing the death of Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins with an old joke by George Carlin. 

You may ask yourself this: Why, God, why?

Jon Wesick can take the credit/blame for this when he commemorated the death of Collins. With a poem about Neil Armstrong. As an also-ran who has stay in the rear with the gear numerous times, I related to Collins, who had to stay in the shuttle during the moon landing (though we all envy his view). Collins deserves a poem better than mine. Maybe I'll write it. Maybe someone better than me will. 

I'm sure Collins real thoughts about his role held much more grace and had nothing to do with the words I shove into him. Ninety five percent of this poem was written during the written. When you're writing this fast, sometimes you gotta go with even your worst instincts. 

Thanks for reading.

Let Loose

To Michael Collins

Michael Collins' last words

written on rumored paper:

F**k Neil Armstrong.

Moon stared at him nightly,

a child he always wanted

but could never have. 

The one world stage 

denied him. No chance 

putting Kubrick on CV.

Strange urge to spill seed

on dead rock, now become

hung skeleton, skullscrewed,

as doomed to fail as Apollo's

flag plant. Deadbeat 's way back

distance between child's 

oceanside view colored blue

and actual ocean. Angels 

watch you write letters 

to hypothetical offspring

but no one delivers. After

wingman for stars, Michael,

what now? Special housing between

sky and glass ceiling 

of atmosphere you can't break?

Hit mountaintops during

summer ride? Nice view 

but no place for a ficus,

just metal seeds in mouth.

Must risk descent and fall

before you plant anything. 

Continuum of life disrupted

from reaching, never taking.

Meditate, lone, blue lotus. 

Give up ghost of what never

happened, cry havoc, turn 

pigeon, be own wingman.

Never hole yourself again.

Spread own flu, shut down

cities again. first small steps. 

Thanks to David's friends joining in.

Special thanks to Jon Wesick, Bil Lewis, Chris Fitzgerald, Carol Weston, Bryan Franco, Roarshock, Mayr Jennings, Jan Rowe, Laurel Lambert, Margaret Nairn Wesel, Toni Bee, James Van Looy, Patricia Carragon and David Leo Sirois.