Stone Soup Croutons, 6-19-24: Take Back the Flight

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.

Last week was an enjoyable all-open mic. Friends returned after months of absence. Poets were introduced and reintroduced. Someone even worked on a bicycle (let us know how that's working out, Jeff). It was an exciting night of work. The politics surrounding the new Juneteenth holiday and the work shared made this poem feisty. 

 

Does the poem below measure to the work that inspired it? How could it? But at least I'm caught up.

At the very least, I'm caught up.

Thanks for reading. 

Take Back the Flight

 

Every Juneteenth barbecue

that doesn't happen is one

more year when whites

can't express disdain over

another day off per year. 

The propped up drama must

be released or interest will

accrue interest will cause 

Angrytown, Massachusetts

to riot and burn thankfully

empty schools. Kids will

more vividly recall when

they heard their moms,

their uncles, mutter barely

under breath and realize 

their family might just be

terrible people, that fences

are for keeping more than

crows out, and even the 

town cemetery is just one

more gated community. 

No homeless would dare 

sleep in their parents' 

garden for fear of what 

scarlet letters would be 

carved on foreheads by 

dawn. The way out by 

the parkway station is just

an underground railroad 

hiding in plain sight. 

The children would rather 

leave it up to the wind 

than to bitter teachers 

waiting for them to return

on Thursday. They'll leave

suicide notes in their home's

one single tree. That will 

stop their search for a while,

let them run until the outer

demons weaken, turn inward,

keep them able to move

away, keep moving on 

to their brand new homes.

Special thanks to Janice Oldham, Jon Wesick, Jan Rowe, Black Byrd, Rich Boucher, Mary Ann Honaker,Jeff Taylor and James Van Looy.