Tag Archives: story

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.

On November 6, 2024 I

woke up exhausted; stared at the ceiling for a full ten minutes before I reached for my phone to check the results; checked the results; stared at the ceiling for another ten minutes; got my children ready for school; thought about how people want to defund the department of education; got my children on the bus; thought about how the president-elect made fun of a disabled reporter and told his own nephew that he should let his special needs child die instead of wasting more money; fixed my usual quad shot latte; let the faces of family flick through my mind, knowing they have voted for someone who makes fun of people like my children and thinks they should die; thought about what to wear for the day; chose a black dress with green and white sneakers – mourning with a touch of whimsy (?), defiance (?), and hope (?) (I’m not sure about hope); thought about Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Palestine; took a long shower and used all the special, smell good products; dried my hair straight and put it in a bun; took my meds and doubled the anti-anxiety pill; filled up my water bottle; got dressed; cried a little bit when I couldn’t find the shoes that I wanted; cried even more when I found them; thought about what will happen if the conservatives get everything they want; thought about the art we might not get because artists are too tired right now; thought about the art we will get – artists digging deep and crying out; remembered that horrible recording where the president-elect bragged about grabbing a woman by the pussy; remembered him saying that he would protect women whether they wanted it or not; got in my car to go to work; found my daisy earrings in the pocket of my purse and put them on to remind me that hope, and daisies, can grow wherever you plant them, beside the road on rocky shoulders and in fields of rich, good soil; drove to work. Welcome to a new day.

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.

Summer Jewels

She could often be found
admiring the fruits of her labor
in her fully stocked pantry –
mason jars of green beans, corn,
tomato juice, tomato sauce, various soups.
She adjusted their stacked-up lines,
shining jewels in summer colors
waiting to be enjoyed once the cold came in.

Six months after my granny died,
I watched my mother from her kitchen table,
She held the last of the green beans,
having rationed the last ten jars,
knowing that when they were gone
there would be no replacement beans
coming this summer.

Opening the jar, she let tears fall.
Silvery jewels of grief slipping silently
down her cheeks and onto her apron.
She held them up to her nose,
and then quickly dumped them
into the pot on the stove.

The last of the summer jewels
graced our Sunday lunch plates
for a final time.

Trash Birds

Don’t call them trash birds,
Granny always said while she walked
towards Walmart and watched the flock
circle and swoop from the neon sign
to the parked cars to the discarded
French fries and spilled milk shakes.
We don’t mock one of God’s creatures
for doing what they were designed to do.

I can’t count the names thrown my way,
can’t count the ways they have all crumpled
and collected against my ribs
and throat like pieces of garbage
flung from a speeding car on I-64:
too much, not enough, slut, crazy, needy,
attention-seeking, a waste of time, bitch,
not good enough, unfit
to name a few.

So, I never call them trash birds.
I call them by their proper name
and watch with delight when they take flight
as one dancing phantom,
dark against the fiery October sky.

In my dreams, each grackle in the plague
settles on my shoulders and picks up a name,
swallows it down, unhurt and nourished –
doing what they were designed to do.