Stone Soup Croutons, 5-22-24: Second-to-Last Ride

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.

Elizabeth Doran featured on Wednesday. It was wonderful. You should watch the video.

I'll be setting up my new laptop later today. The poem is what came out of a rough week with some sweet work from Elizabeth to make it work going through.

Thanks for reading. 

Second-to-Last Ride

 

Worried your crooked body

can't survive a bunk up

with displaced students 

at the shelter, you graduate

to suicide watch with a mirror.

You're on your way to 

Hell, of course. The dog who

always bit your hand drives

while listening to acoustic 

Sunday morning tunes 

from asteroid themed ballads 

to crystal ships and other things

to freeze over Florida. 

There are no birds where

you're going, and cigarettes 

are a bigger commodity there

than in prison. Unraveling 

quicker than a rabbit in

headlights, going by lovers

behind uncurtained windows 

amidst public displays of affection,

showing what you could have had

if anyone but God ever loved you. 

Special thanks to Jeff Taylor, Jan Rowe, Robert Fleming, Bil Lewis, Rich Boucher, Julian Matthews, Jon Wesick, Ethan Mackler, James Van Looy, C. C. Arshagra and special feature Elizabeth Doran.