Poor Man's Soup

Poor Man's Soup


Ketchup and water

Poor Man's Soup


Blood's thicker than water

Poor Man's Soup

And in my youth,

In my flour sack dress,

By the light of the moon

I wrote my lessons

With whittled pencils,

On brown paper bags

With the stains of

Poor Man's Soup.

Every day for lunch

The same cheese sandwiches -

More than my friends had;

Traded them away,

Glad,

For buttered bread and

Poor Man's Soup.

Fun was scarce but we got by,

Rings on our fingers -

Torn bellies of fireflies.

Chewing wax instead of gum was fine,

But all the time my mother cried

'til her eyes were as red as

Poor Man's Soup.

And a few months after the stock market crash

My father - a mess,

Jumped off the roof of Sears and Roebuck -

Guessed he'd be better luck

To his family dead -

When they found him they said

He looked just like

Poor Man's Soup.


~Darkling Plain, Aug. 24, 2006