Stone Soup Croutons, 5-29-24: How to Remove Blood

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.

Thank you, Valerie Loveland, for closing May out this past Wednesday.  Her computer died, but she was able to get back on and complete her feature. The part in the video when she "freezes" is even worth watching.

The poems I've been writing for the last week have been less surreal and more bordering on the senseless. This week I really tried to match the surreal quality of Valerie's work. The blood came from something else I'm working on related to everything thing I'm seeing online. 

Just my way of saying don't ask me what it means.

I hope to be less exhausted and more lucid in June.

Thanks for reading. 

How to Remove Blood

 

Because you asked.

First the clothing,

the body, needs to 

agree to be purged. 

Be good. Or not. 
Keep it in basement 

with others too broken

to vote or count. 

Pen application via

chat GPT. Never too

obsolete to wipe off

someone else's shit.

Never elevated again
where jumping can 
kill you, no street 

musicians interrupted. 

Your grief is inside

Schrödinger's box, 

both not existing 

and easy to ignore. 

There's no you, only

other. And you came

to learn about how 

to remove blood. 

Maybe yours, maybe

the last person you 

encountered. Police 

reports hold answers.

Then there's that job

you won't want but 

will get. Work for tips

to buy a matchbook.

Your tracks are now 

phosphorous. We'll 

know if you skip a 

shift. Burn your 

clothes, bury self, 

divide body among 

multiple spots. Man, 

women, no one helps.

We said we'd make 

the blood go away, 

not clean you. Now 

recover on your own. 

Almost took this without Jeff Taylor's name!

Special thanks to David Miller, Jan Rowe, Mark States, Bil Lewis, Rich Boucher, Jon Wesick, James Van Looy, Jeff Taylor, C.C. Arshagra, Jason Wright and special feature Valerie Loveland.