SAFE DISTANCE EDITION: Stone Soup Croutons, 7-15-20: Pandemic Outcast Diary

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked from Stone Soup'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. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, this poem doesn't go up because it's ready, it goes up because it's Friday morning.

It was great to have Erik Tate feature on Wednesday.  We have Alexis Ivy next Wednesday, and I should be able to announce more features this weekend. Thanks to Erik for being one of the first to volunteer for our online feature series.

Erik has numerous unpublished collections, so he gave us a lot to absorb with his reading. I hope this week's piece did him some justice. Thanks for reading.


Pandemic Outcast Diary

We remember when we asked permission
to protest in our own streets, raised hats
to statues, as if hoping to be pulled up.

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION: Stone Soup Croutons, 6-3-20: The Grand Party

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked from Stone Soup'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. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, this poem doesn't go up because it's ready, it goes up because it's Friday morning.

What an open mic this past Wednesday. It was late because I was late. Nearly everything has been late this week. My newsletter never even came out when it should have. But that's okay. Because you get to see me in the video of the event enjoying tomato soup with Planters cheese balls thrown in as the best croutons ever. I love my girlfriend. She has the best ideas.

This week's poem isn't quite Black Lives Matter, and it isn't quite pandemic, but it had elements of these themes from the open mic to kind of make its own amalgamated theme.

Time to go catch up with everything else. Thanks for reading.


The Grand Party

Bring your best upside down bible.
Easier than flipping White House.

Truth and honesty make private Pietà
in penultimate corner for non-dancers.

City Hiaku

U.S. reopened.
Traffic blocks flow of road
like a knee to throat.

Is James' Pandemic Poem the New Labyrinth Poem

Read James Van Looy's latest poem column. It's All One Thing is up now at Oddball Magazine.

My Mega Poem is Up

"Rough Beast Born," my epic-sized erasure poem, is based on Donald's Trump's infamous near-ninety minute speech at his South Carolina rally in February. After all my work editing his words, it's still a beast of a poem. It is finally up at Headline Poetry & Press. My thanks to Editor Hokis  for her endless support.

This Week's Additional Friendly Reminder

We're probably in a newer world today than we already have been the past few months, but this information is still vital. This is one of the many creative advertisements seen around Cambridge.

Now More Than Ever

Oddball Magazine wants to use it's forum to the best of its ability in these terrible times.

We will still publish pandemic-inspired work in response to the global issue, but we also would like any work (poetry, art, etc.) in reaction to the recent racist atrocities, especially with the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.

Please send such submissions under the "Timely Submission" category of our Submittable page.

Please spread the word. Thank you.

SAFE DISTANCE EDITION: Stone Soup Croutons, 5-27-20: Commencement

Stone Soup Croutons is a weekly poem I write using lines and impressions picked from Stone Soup'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. To paraphrase Lorne Michaels, this poem doesn't go up because it's ready, it goes up because it's Friday morning.

Thanks for coming to the open mic on Wednesday. This has been keeping me going, in all honesty. I've been thinking about people graduating this year. I recently saw someone's kid online taking part in a socially distanced ceremony. That's probably why this week's entry not is not a COVID-19 piece, but a commencement speech of sorts (something I'll definitely never give). The horrific events and behaviors of others over the last few days were also on my mind, as they are on other people's minds (thanks, Toni Bee), but those will have to be carried over to other poems.  Hope this one is different enough to be a breath of fresh air for some. Thanks for reading.


Commencement

I tell you children today,
you are wiser, remember more
than your home country.

This is why you are tried
as adults the very moment
you step outside.

The Still is Gone, The Still Has Gone Away

Gone is the quiet commute I had in the first weeks of the pandemic.

The noise is back. The smell is back. The cars are back.

The second wave feels like it's already on it's way.

Now over One-Hundred Thousand COVID-19 Deaths

You sure did!

Keeping Apart...

Welcome poet Christopher James who closes us out today with artwork by Dr. Regina Valuzzi.Thank you for reading our COVID-19 themed work today at Oddball Magazine.

Quickly They Sprout

Welcome poet James Madigan and welcome back photographer Bonnie Matthews Brock, as we begin our COVID-19 inspired poetry this Wednesday at Oddball Magazine. 

American Haiku: Rock the Body Count

When I started my Sarcastic Haiku series, I wrote my first American Haiku. You can read my first one, and others I've written since, by clicking here  and scrolling down.

American Haiku: Rock the Body Count

Five-seven-five fraud!
Don't go out, you got no clout!
Vote and die! Vote and Die!

Still Accepting COVID-19 Themed Work

Oddball Magazine is accepting COVID-19 poems, prose, photography and artwork. For instructions on how to submit, please click here.

How the Pandemic...

So glad to have this poem by new contributor Drew Pisarra with a slightly different version of a photo I posted yesterday. Here comes  the pandemic poetry for Tuesday at Oddball Magazine.

Spion Out and About Again?

While I was walking around Central Square yesterday, I was happy to find a sticker by Spion that looked fresh and new.

It's good to think that Spion is getting his work out again. More than that, his work is faring better out here in post coronavirus land. Better than in the MBTA at least.

Saw this on the way home.

This Week's Friendly Reminder

Instead of posting one of the many "No mask, no services" type of signs I've seen in a lot of places, I've decided to show some of the more creative pandemic posters. This is one I saw in a store window while social distancing in Central Square, Cambridge. Didn't get the store name. Will update and put it in if I go back today.

Yesterday's Ride

When I went to Central Square yesterday, it was my first time ever in an empty Red Line car. The car may have even been empty all the way from Andrew Station.An empty car at any time of the day, let alone five in the afternoon? It's never happened. Not during the weekend, not on a weekday at midnight, not even on Christmas day.

Happy Memorial Day

Please leave your flags at home today. You'll save lives.

The New Porn

From the South Boston Dunkin Donuts.

Porn in the new, post-COVID-19 world may be either more fun or more gross. That's for you to decide.

Me? I vote Ew.