Friday, December 30, 2022

Stone Soup Croutons, 12-28-22: Holiday Resignation


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.
 
Wednesday was Stone Soup's last open mic of 2022. It was short and sweet, the exact opposite of this year. I can't thank this year's participants enough. I thank this week's group for humoring my echoey voice on the Zoom call. 

So why did I mark the year's end with a Santa poem? Blame or thank Rusty Rose for the opening poem that got me going. I'm sure I'll have more year-end poems to come after today. 

Maybe on January 2, I'll have more clarity than I do now to write about this year with something other than blind loathing. Until then, thanks for reading. Stay safe this weekend and have a better year than this one moving forward.


Holiday Resignation

Santa Claus replied to your
to your letters. He's done
with all of you.
Thanks to angels, snow
covers his escape.
No more filing for 
unemployment 
every December 26.
Too old to go back 
and get his master's.
No burning bush to 
pick out a career in 
music, or bounty hunting.
Meddler in Russian affairs
was already taken.
And everyone wants
to be Hitler. Everyone 
would rather become 
deadbeat dad to world
than successful father to one, 
revisionist goodbye note 
pinned on the planet. 
Humble shepherds don't fill 
arenas with their flock,
beauty of well-tended
field burned out by 
tyrant's eternal sneer. 
The online economy has
spoken. Santa doesn't
have the chance a squirrel
has of being chosen 
over chicken for a 
blue note stew. Time to
get in line, muscle
for room at the inn 
on the eve of...
something new.


Special thanks to Rusty Rose, Ed Gault, Mary Jennings, Bil Lewis, Jan Rowe, John Engstrom, Julianne Powers, Ethan Mackler, Carol Weston and James Van Looy.

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