Friday, January 14, 2022

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION - Stone Soup Croutons, 1-12-22: The Nation Convinces Itself


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 collecting the best of my first year of poems. Click here to purchase it.

Megha Sood was our first feature of 2022. I'm glad I was finally able to showcase her voice. Buy her books if you can. It was also good to have Mark Lipman of Vagabond Books read from Reimagine America, reading a poem in the book from the late Blaine Hebbel.Political work like Sood's and Hebbel's fed into this week's poem. Of course being home sick added a lot. Sorry for how I sounded on the call.
 
I would dwell on the process of them poem more (especially as it almost feels unfinished, like there's an open micer I forgot to count), but I have my health and the health of others to think of. It's hard for even the sick to get rest. Hope you're all doing better. Thanks for reading.



The Nation Convinces Itself

People cough up ignorance into
buckets by the bed. All bodies
demand apologies from their handlers.

Butterflies tell the children to run
from the parents who try to prove 
Darwin is stronger than the Earth.

The nation convinces itself: Some
need to hold their breathe longer 
than others, some fake not breathing.
 
Anyone pleading not to be hurt 
can't be trusted for mutual agenda
of not wanting to be hurt. 

Nothing lasts forever. Why do you
want to? Survival is a Master Class
you can't even afford to take. 
 
An arm with a defense wound is a
potential threat.  You never know what 
kind of sharp shards people can break into.

A bullhorn looks like a weapon from 
above. Assassination is self defense
if people aren't already dead walking.

Society must come out to the light
like the morning paper that stopped 
listening before people stopped reading. 
 
Everything is justified so long as it
goes unrecorded. No blocking either
platitudes or  ass-grabbing own children.

Want a higher spot? A legion of pins 
invite you to dance on them, bloodlessly.
Wait for their dog whistle, make the lie real.

Let them welcome you to the world made
from your flesh. Hear the music in the vortex,
where your old world wisdom used to be.



Special thanks to Mark Lipman, Ed Gault, Jan Rowe, Mary Jennings, Chris Fitzgerald, Patricia Carragon, Nancy Dodson, Bil Lewis, Carol Weston, Denice Garcia Benders, C.C. ARshagra, Ethan Mackler, James Van Looy and Megha Sood.

1 comment:

megha said...

Thanks so much, Chad for inviting me to the Stone Soup. You did a brilliant job of hosting considering your health.