Stone Soup Servings is a regular series for Oddball Magazine that features upcoming performers at Stone Soup Poetry, the long-running spoken word venue in the Boston area that has recently partnered with Oddball Magazine. Stone Soup Poetry meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery at 106 Prospect Street with an open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m.

On July 21, motorcycle poetry returns to Cambridge and the Stone Soup crowd with K. Peddlar Bridges and Lisa Golda-Shields reading as part of the the Roadpoet Fortnight event taking place this July across New England. Read their poems below and be in the Gallery this Monday for them and perhaps even a surprise reader or two.

 

The American Diner

The 40s … 50s … 60s …

There were Diners in those days

Most likely from the near tip of Key West
To the near top of Maine
Where ever Route One ran
There was the Action

They even had Rt One and
Rt One A …
Just so you could double your fun
Along side Rt 1 … Rt 1A

You could always find
Old Tourist Cabins
With 40s … 50s … Early 60s’ …
Sedans and Coupes
Parked in the Court Yards
Or just coming back
Pulling in from the Diner!

And not far away
from Rt 1 … Rt 1A
There was always a race track!
Horses were trotting
Dogs were running
and cars were Spinning
Around and Around The Track

And after the races
The Diner was the place to go!

And on Weekends the Drive-In Movies
Was the place to be.

Young folks
Old Folks
Car Folks
Family Folks
Folks watching the screen
Folks handing peanut Butter
sandwiches over
the back of the front seat
to the kids in the back seat
while the dog
wagged his tail
and waited for his share

while the young folks
in the next car
necked
or passed
greasy French-fries
over the seat to
one another
or shared watered down
cups of Coke a Cola

In between shesssing one another …
“Shessss , I want to hear this.”

And no matter how many French-Fry boxes
or Pop Corn boxes
were emptied during the picture
After the show … The Diner
was still … The place to go!

So come around Mid-Night
on weekend ends
The rumble of Harley’s
could be heard
Coming down Old Rt One
back from the Beaches

As Stock Car trailers
and ramp trucks too
could be heard
rattling over bumps
as they rolled
into the back of the parking lot
coming back from the track
to stop at the diner

And soon
late night teens
could be heard
returning from the Drive-In show
Playing Radios
with music
of blue jeans
Hot Rods
and Peggy Sue

And all this was the way
from near Tip of Key West
to The Near Top of Maine

And so are these
the memories

of the 40s … 50s … and Early 60s’ …
Route One and Route One A
and The American Diner.

–K. Peddlar Bridges

 

Wisteria Woman

Violet lavender drug
slipping beneath my skin,
shucking off the stale air
of too long shut in,
too long shut away
whispering to me
to breathe deep and be.

The clothes fall away
till I stand like mother Eve
two bites before the apple.
Lips blush to rose,
and the tongue tastes
of sweet tart pomegranate,
while a wisp of wind
carries hair to frame my face.

All I have been is pollen dusted,
oh the wisteria sweet
kissing deep,
till I feel the promise of fertile,
drooping fat on a vine
petals that promise nothing,
but hint at all.

A month from honeysuckle still to come,
but I can taste the nights,
raise my eyes to the mantle of sky,
suddenly clad in the skin
of every moonlit woman,
and beckoning with my being
for you to dance beneath
the far flung sky
in the arms of a Wisteria Woman.

–Lisa Golda-Shields