Friday, May 17, 2024

One Last Time! Stone Soup Croutons, 5-15-24: Keep Walking, or They'll Take You Away


Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions selected 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.

This past Wednesday C.C. Arsharga gave us the feature everyone hoped it would be. Full of poetry, music and history. Perfect for the anniversary month. Catch the performance and the open mic now if you haven't. 

Tried to stay on C.C.'s messages and themes for today's poem. Still, I guess I gotta be me.

Title based on Boston's rule for protesting on sidewalks. 

Everything else is a f***ing mess.

Thanks for reading.
 
Final Note: This is the second and final repost I'll be doing After Facebook kept locking me for spamming, I (think I) finally figured out a way to share on all the group pages. I was so scared that Facebook was changing in a way that was going to hurt what I do (mostly because most change does). Turns out this is helping me, so now I'm creating a new post Third time's the charm.  *sigh*


Keep Walking, or They'll Take You Away
 
Activist's sidewalk,
bronze statues mock 
unchiseled rabble.

Nostalgic for days 
when kind acts  
were mandatory.

What would Pépé 
say if he broke out 
of  his urn, chance

to say final words 
somebody would
actually remember,

could reimmortalize 
himself to people 
and what they fought.

It takes a levelheaded
Norman Bates to know
what to wear each day

and when to wear what
they want, be incognito
like artichoke in pizza.

Unsexy zombies take
hundredth day striking 
on life, debate where 

to hide souls if cops 
ever come. Question:
If corporations are

people, then are they 
actually homeless,
squatting in bedrooms?

Are working class
frogs or toads? Throw
in mouse, see results.

Meanwhile, slideshow
declares we must teach
liberals to shoot first.

Brother-in-law calls 
to say you've marched 
enough, buy a Mercedes.

Mom's disappointed. 
Son has not yet settled. 
She prays you convert,

expects you giving in 
will be your dying words
she can set in stone. 

She wants another man 
who wins. She's tired 
of your rise to fail 

these past five decades,
done her wrong with
these repeated attempts

to baptize yourself for
a second time. She 
knows you'd stick head

in monsoon to be clean,
still won't die until you 
know there's another prize.



Special thanks to Richard Spisak, Jackie Chou, Kathleen Hulser, Ken Johnson, Ed Poetastic, Robert Fleming, Mary Ann Honaker, Jan Rowe, Jeff Taylor, Bil Lewis, Paul Skiff, Mary Jennings, Jon Wesick, Dave Henri, Mark Lipman, Ethan Mackler, James Van Looy and special feature C.C. Arshagra.

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