poem – Sarah Stoltzfus Allen

Stepping into the Ring, Having Just Been Kicked Out of the Boys’ Competition, PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOOOOOOOOOOOS!!!!!!!!

There once was a Lickety Split
who knew how to take a hard hit.
He’d wiggle and shake,
refused all the brakes,
and got out of there, fast with his wit.

“His wit,” you ask and you scratch,
“is no good in a fisticuffs match.”
But he made them all dizzy
when he whirled in a tizzy
while spewing mathematical facts.

The aggressors were no good at sums,
they should have been sucking their thumbs.
They thought he’d gone crazy,
but always got hazy,
and with one calculated punch, they succumbed.

***

This is based on a true-ish story. Historians disagree about the identity of Pythagoras of Samos, who won men’s boxing at the olympics (after he was kicked out of the boys competition because he was too effeminate). Some believe that this Pythagoras was the famed mathematician. Some believe that it’s a completely different dude. I like to think it was the mathematician.

Middle-ish Age

or, Sonnet 2, if Old Bill Shakes had Considered Reality

When forty winters crown my aging head
and crow’s feet line the smile around my eyes,
my youth will start its journey down the drain,
and I don’t care who knows that I am old.
And if you ask me where my beauty lies
and where the perk of youth has run off to,
I’ll pull my glasses down my nose and free
the pent-up truth I’ve kept behind my teeth:
we’re sold the lie that beauty should endure
without a single dimple on our skin,
but beauty lies in pure embodiment
of simple joy in every season spent.
I do not covet spring, its blooming rose,
I’m well content in autumn’s golden clothes.

***

I have been responding to and rewriting Shakespeare’s sonnets as a writing exercise. It’s been challenging and fun and makes me feel a bit…uh…conceited (is that the right word?). Anyway, I hope you love it! Read the original Sonnet 2 here.

While Trying to Read a Novel on My First Free Afternoon in Months

I do not wish you death or pain or sorrow.
I do not wish for you to toil in fear,
but if you, dear friend, don’t leave until tomorrow,
I might be forced to kick you in the rear.
And since all you can do is interrupt,
I’ve started thinking of unpleasant scenes
that cause no harm, but really could disrupt
your peace, your comfort, and tranquility.
I hope you find yourself with sticky fingers
that thorough soapy scrubbing can’t erase.
I hope your silent stinker always lingers
and recognition makes you a disgrace.
May your socks always be bunched up at your heel,
and if you’d lose your voice that’d be ideal.

It’s not that I dislike our friendly gabs.
I understand your need for frequent breaks,
but if you don’t hush I’ll feel the need to stab
my just licked finger into your slice of cake.
It’s possible that this may seem unkind,
to wish unpleasantness upon a friend.
And if you think my words should be refined
feel free to ignore me until the day’s dark end!
Please zip your lips and head to another space
so I can stop these hateful, annoying thoughts.
‘Cause I still want your cheeks to clench as you race
into a crowded bathroom with the trots.
Come back in a hour and I’ll be dandy and fine
I really just want to finish chapter nine.

Multivitamin

I’m forty years old
and my multivitamin is the best part
of my entire day.

Well, that’s probably not exactly true.
I also really like the first sip of coffee,
the way I can see a cardinal at my bird feeder
as soon as I open my eyes in the morning,
and the way the sun filters through the curtains
in the evenings and makes my whole bed a golden nest.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the smiles
I still get from my boys when I get home,
the jangling of ice in my favorite water cup,
and text messages from friends.

But that multivitamin?
It tastes like childhood:
sour fruit snack gummies and books
read by flashlight well past bedtime,
mouth watering stares into bins of rainbow
colored candies that were scooped into brown
paper bags that I clutched in my little girl hands
and savored over every day of our summer vacation,
and standing in the candy aisle with my granny
while she picked out her favorite sugar free gum
and then let me pick out my favorite
sugar bursting chewy sweet.

I didn’t realize when I turned forty that I would try
to relive all those favorite childhood things every morning,
but here we are:
giving up most of the super sugary treats in favor
of more grownup needs and taste buds,
trying to take care of an aging body
that now has a laundry list of medical diagnoses,
and whining about my liney eyes.

But that multivitamin,
suggested by doctors to help my body do
what it is supposed to do?
Well, it may not keep me young, but it’s an honest
choice to keep going and to make sure
the girl I used to be sees all our
dreams come true.

Arty Bollocks

Listen, I’m typically a no nonsense
kind of girl. I sit down to write a poem,
and I write a poem.
I think about the syllables and form.
I decide that dancing through dandelions
is definitely too much alliteration.
I know when to show and when to tell,
the words swirling into images for the reader.

I don’t have a specific muse,
the will to write is cultivated time
that I have carved into my daily life.
I write because it is the time to write.

But today?
Today the words don’t feel like special friends.
They feel all wrong,
disjointed and I can’t find a good enjambment
if my life depended on it.

Everything is prose that is
broken with line breaks in all th
e wrong places. And I can’t seem to
make a damn thing make sense.

If you came here looking for a good poem,
I am sorry to disappoint.

Maybe someone who feels the words
like a life force and has seen Kalliope
in her natural habitat will do a better job.
If you want directions to their place,
just ask.

Easter

It would surprise me if the rapture
happened at sunrise on Resurrection Sunday.
Jesus, with all his miracles has already
done the sunrise coming back thing.
He’ll choose some other time.

At least that’s what I think.

But still, we gathered at sunrise
in our pastel, Easter glory
waiting for him to return.
The adults with dry, heavy eyes
and the little boys with chocolates hidden
in their suit pockets and the little girls carrying
their special patent leather handbags
filled with brightly colored treats and lip gloss.
The crinkle of colored foil,
slowly being unwrapped as they tried,
and failed, to be quiet while they
sat in the pews sneaking a snack.

He didn’t come back this year at sunrise
and I wasn’t surprised.
The lure of the county’s finest cooks
bringing their best breakfast dishes
didn’t attract him the last thirty years.
Why would it work this year?

Maybe we should try something else
to hasten his return.

I don’t know what would work,
but loving your neighbor and carrying on his
work of taking care of the people on the fringe
sounds like a good place to start.

Coffee Creamer

I wasn’t looking, and she added too much creamer.
I drank the coffee anyway,
the sweet liquid coating

my teeth and tongue with a layer
of slick sugar I wouldn’t be able to rid
myself of without a thorough brushing.

Her forearms tensed and flexed
as she balled her nightgown in her fists
and in her lap trying to hide the anxiety,

and I wondered how we had come to this place:
the serving coffee and being anxious
and not meeting each other’s gaze.

We need to talk, she said,
just as I was standing to leave.

I sat back down and waited.

The Squeeze

We gathered around the worn table,
buttering fresh bread and passing
bowls of buttered peas and mashed potatoes.

I had a horrible dream last night, he said.
I looked up from my peas and watched
him hold back tears, heard his voice
hitch up the octave, and caught a glimpse
of shaking hands before he slipped
them into his lap.

The stoic man of my childhood
has disappeared in the last twelve years,
grandkids change a man apparently.

He was lost, and I couldn’t find him, he said.
He told us how he searched everywhere –
quiet corners, shady stands of trees, the creek.
I yelled for him until my throat was raw.

I looked back at my peas and heard him finally lose
what modicum of control he had left.
But he finally came running down the hill
and threw himself into my arms.
He looked towards the living room,
seeing through the walls,
to where my youngest was silently reading
in a quiet corner with a blanket over his head.

“It was just a dream, Steve,” she said
and reached over to squeeze his hand.

While Weathering a Windstorm

The bradford pears and the redbuds
bloomed early this year.
I don’t know if there is any significance
to this phenomenon,
but it has left me feeling off kilter.

In springs past, when I finally spot
the redbuds blooming on their black branches,
it meant the long dark of winter had passed;
that I could breathe deep the sun
that floods my cells with vitamin d.

But now, with early blooms being ripped
from bending, swaying branches, I feel gutted –
not knowing if it is time to breathe
or if I still need to hide in layers of
wool and thick cotton.

Goldenrod and Ironweed

Why are you crying, my love?

She wiped her eyes,
sniffled her nose,
and lifted her gaze to the window
above the sink.

The goldenrod and ironweed are blooming,
she said, slipping her hands into soapy water.
The earth is settling her melancholy
deep into my bones,
unfurling her funeral flowers alongside
roads and in the low, wet places of the hills,
one last majestic sight
before fading into rust and gold.

One last burst of color to hold
during the long, bleak of winter.

That is the most poetic way I have ever heard
anyone describe their allergies, my love.