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.
Mary Jennings had an amazing feature last Wednesday. So why did it take so lon got get this crouton poem out?
In the video, I noticed that both she and I were coughing. I joked that I was glad she didn't catch the cough from me. I think I paid for that joke.
Sure enough, my cough (which started up again after I was cleared of COVID) got worse over the weekend.
Every day I tried to work on the poem, it seemed symptoms either popped up or intensified. I ended up having a fever that only broke yesterday. I'm monitoring myself at home, taking stronger cough medication and taking one more COVID test in the hopes that I'll be clear tomorrow.
Last night, to celebrate my broken fever, I picked up my pen for the first time since Saturday and started working on the poem again. This is what I came up with. I knew I had to put my best effort in after hearing her poem titled after an old "Twilight Zone" episode. Thanks for reading and thanks for your patience.
A Trumpeter's Last Breath
the sins commited in their place,
the TV shows they never watched.
You, one of the slightly motivated
quietly wait for laws the change
You think you can choose where
and who your slave labor benefits.
Your self-sanctuaries confined
to timeshare, bites of expensive
cheeses between breakless shifts,
pauses before poetry readings,
however long before you phone
updates again. Only the results
of our waiting get written in stone.
The intermission between now
and Judgment Day make us sleep
poorly. Wait until you come back
as a tick to feed on Earth again,
pimping former pallbearers out
for your cut of blood and then some.
The world doesn't even need one
horsemen, only a trumpet to pump
the rest up to an apocalypse run.
Stay in the background and suck
on someone else's drama, stay
indifferent to second demise.
The book of your life banned
out of apathy. Let the woman right
in front dance for whatever reason.
You can rationalize: If they like
socialism so much, no one will
get kingdom. She won't mind.
It's the long standing ultimatum.
If you don't get reprieve, no one
gets reprieve, all are guilty.
There's an actual sane universe
over there. You go over there,
ignoring the sign: No vacancy.
Anticipating your gracelessness,
there's a restraining order for you.
They won't take refugees either.
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| I have to start scanning these lists. |
Special thanks to Rusty Rose, Nancy Dodson, Chris Fitzgerald, Jan Rowe, C.C. Arshagra, Patricia Carragon, Jon Wesick, Ari Whipple, Bil Lewis, Ethan Mackler, James Van Looy and Mary Jennings.
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