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.
A nutty all open mic this week, filled with perils and bad connections. Poets were breaking in and out so much, it seemed like poetic mad libs. Plus my Mom called, so she has a bit of a cameo in the video. Let's see what kind of poem I can come up with when everything that could go wrong already has. For anyone else, this would have been embarrassing, a disaster. For me, it was Wednesday.
Now you know the inspiration behind my title.
There were a lot of great references to Black History Month on the open mic. I apologize for my poem not reflecting that. I couldn't figure out a way to implement those elements early on. Please watch the video when you have time, and you can hear them. To Philip J. Curtis, if it's any consolation, I envisioned the mountain in my poem as Mount Bashenga. Thanks for reading.
Wednesdays
The figments of my worst-case fantasies
They make sure I can see them even when
the power goes out in my home every night,
talk me up further ledges on the mountain,
turn all my hypotheticals into Murphy's laws,
turn grocery lists into Book of Life sins,
note the part where I forgot to paint between
molecules in front of the whole United Nations!
Owl and panther put down pie, come after me.
A priest suggested for lent that I just give up.
The turtle I lap around asks why I even bother.
Elements argue over what sign I really am,
not wanting me to speak for any of them.
Remember when my guidance counselor
suggested prison? A random knee on my ass
reminds that I'm still in the grocery store with
my list, in danger of becoming like produce.
Got to think of any other music not playing
overhead. Make my way out of this garden
of earthly undelight. Too long an open hand,
everything becomes a thorn. Must pantomime
as if I were stepping in potholes, and I just
might make it to someplace quiet like home.
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| We made it, people! |
Special thanks to Ed Gault, Nancy Dodson, Jan Rowe, Philip Curtis, Chris Fitzgerald, Jon Wesick, Carol Weston, Karen Sklany, John Sturm, Ethan Macker, Bil Lewis and James Van Looy.
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