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.
Thank you, Laura Kiesel, for a fine feature. You've come a long way since you first Stone Soup feature ten years ago. I'm buying your book today and rooting for you to find a new home in Boston.
This week's poem won't do Laura's poems justice, so you should listen to that if you haven't already. It's funny how I even incoporated some imagetry from her opening monologue before she even read a poem. Lot of memories brought up. Thanks for reading.
The default message
from substitute therapist
is to kill your dog.
Can't toss pebble anywhere
without hitting siren.
Syringe serenades
can't cry self to sleep
any longer.
Fevers pitches dreams,
red cloaked woman at door,
wolf as armed escort.
All the fierceness of
a first grey hair,
refusing to be pulled.
That sparse ribcage
an armored clam
pilfered too many times.
A frog's heart kept
safe throughout winter,
dreading spring cancer.
Circle end of cave
in ritual before
it's safest to come out.
Wait till serpent throws
game's first apple.
Stadium music plays.
Strung nerves a catcher's
mitt, umpire asks why
no children yet.
Why so angry? Doesn't
matter. You'll need rage
for what's ahead.
The creepers line up,
take turns catcalling
at top of escalator
as if they wait at port
and you are their ship
finally come in.
Only hellhounds at feet
could mistake cold shoulder
for a cool breeze.
Travel light as light
faster than they can fan
flames on Tinder.
No need to witness
their online ancestry,
those heavenly hells.
 |
| /Sorry we lost you, Laurel. |
Special thanks to Andy Oram, Jon Wesick, Patricia Carragon, Rita Rose, Jan Rowe, Chris Fitzgerald, Carol Weston, Nancy Dodson, John Stickney, Jason Wright, James Van Looy and Laurel Kiesel.
1 comment:
Chad, you have done it again.
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