Stone Soup Croutons, 6-4-25: Come and See the Show

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.

Happy June! Thanks for coming to the open mic this past Wednesday. Sorry for the weird camera work in the video.

 

I have a ton of work on my plate. Jobs to complete, Stone Soup features to announce, poems to write. A lot to do with no calm center to work from makes it harder to do these poems. 

 

It helps when the open mic works off each other. Thanks to Mark States and Robert Fleming for their contributions, which helped me along this week.

 

The title I cribbed from an Emerson, Lake and Palmer song. 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

Come and See the Show

Popcorn and a few thousand grams

of carbs to keep Stockholm stocked up.

 

In here, orange is a healthy skin color.

Have your ice cream thrown to ground

 

in front of you by new age feudal lords.  

The computers roll loaded dice to decide

 

your rents, who gets flowers in windows.

The popcorn keeps coming, your food 

 

to watch own demise, eye own grinding

to grain on own dime. Body will unwind

 

in time for curtain. Believe it. You'll be

broken and bought. Your parking spot 

 

your grave site, buried with shame of prior

optomism. Whatever grows from the cracks

 

is your eulogy. Meanwhile, the rats continue

to slide by on never showing up to vote.  

 

Special thanks to Mark States, Nike Truth, Richard Spisak, Edward S. Gault, Jan Rowe, Jon Wesick, Bil Lewis, Robert Fleming, Mary Ann Honaker and James Van Looy.