Month: September 2026

Yielding

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

When you rev your diesel 4 x 4 and congest Main Street with fumes and fury,
your pathetic bid to dominate and genital insecurities are on full display.

And when you write things like that, you’re displaying…
STOP! I know. But we’re human. We snipe.

You’re human. You give gifts.
We’re human. We give black eyes.

You’re human. You pull weeds.
We’re human. We pull rank.

You’re human. You prepare meals.
We’re human. We prepare for war.

You’re human. You seek the Truth.
We’re human. We seek revenge.

You’re human. You aspire to…
STOP! I can’t take another round. We no longer seem to aspire.

Let’s wait a bit before you look in the mirror this morning.
I wonder what a brush of hope on your cheeks might do.

Why bother? This is the way I look.

The eyebrows could be darker, more expressive.  
And the lips. What do you think about ruby red?

STOP! I’m awake. I know my face. And my fate.

You know neither. Yield the right-of-way. Let them roar by.
Yielding feels like being gutted. I’m not good at sacrifice.

Come sit with me. I’ll braid your wispy hair,
and we can wash the dishes together.

That sounds like a terrible idea.

I’ll rinse. You dry. And thus, our light will have shone where it matters.
We don’t dry our dishes. We let the air do that.

That’s right. We’ll let the air do that.

****** ****** ****** ****** ******

For more uplifting, cheery poems and conversations just like this, you can order our book from the YOU KNOW WHO online and for a mere $13.99, you can torment your soul every day. Also, I am now posting on Substack, and may drift there as my primary place to post.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Rita Sommers-Flanagan2 Comments

Long ago, Charles Dickens wisely noted, these are the best of times, and these are the worst of times. At present, the balance seems to be drifting toward the worst. Harsh judgments and general nastiness are flying every which way. Some are chronically disappointed in their own mistakes and shortcomings, while others loudly denounce the stupidities and failures of our neighbors.

And some, like me, swing both ways, genetically predisposed to identifying the egregious and erroneous both inside and out. The illusory algorithms don’t help. It’s difficult to live within myself and torturous to watch the news or go to town.

That’s why I reluctantly give thanks and praise to the giddiest, most irreverent, whimsical, Mutha of a Coauthor ever. She’s so far over the top there’s no defining or containing her. This is a horrible blessing.

Just yesterday, she livened my horizon dancing naked, ponderous brown breasts swaying like unhinged planets. Holding a rainbow flag and an assault rifle above her head, the Howling Creator finished her pirouettes, and the known universe bowed in prayer. I stood by, watchful.

She bent a witchy finger and beckoned me to come hither, but I ran for yon. The potential for defiant joy was palpable, but it’s safer to notice what’s wrong.

“Oh, my dear foolishness,” my Coauthor cackled from the back of a camouflaged pick-up. She shot off rounds with her heavenly auxiliary and scattered red and blue aster seeds in the wind.

“Asters are perennials,” I yelled from a safe distance. “And perennials often become weeds.”

She shrugged. “You need to focus on what’s good, If joy floats by, soak it up, gulp it down. Expand your innards!” She demonstrated with a thunderous belch and pounded her chest.

Despite myself, I burst out laughing.

“That’s it!” she shouted. “Now let’s expand the pie!”

She brandished a pie and sliced it open, freeing four and twenty blackbirds. Red-winged blackbirds, jubilant in flight. “You’re the niftiest little thing I’ve taunted all day!” she declared, delighted and crazed.

Our times are dark with fear. The blind are leading the blinded; the rich, filthy rich, the poor, desperately poor. Yet Creation gambols on, fighting the good fight, leaving no one behind.

We toil in the garden, be it Eden or hell, while she leaps about shouting, “All will be well.”

“Stop with the outlandish assertions,” I told her dryly. “No one believes you anyway.”

She feigned indignation, but I didn’t back down. She never tells the whole truth. She’s Queen of Poetic License, a victim of malicious misinterpretation.

She gave me a look. “I could just take my resilience elsewhere, you know.”

“I know,” I admitted. “Please don’t.”

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

For more uplifting, cheery poems and conversations just like this, you can order our book from the YOU KNOW WHO online and for a mere $13.99, you can torment your soul every day. Also, I am now posting on Substack, and may drift there as my primary place to post.

The Nearly Frozen Woman

Rita Sommers-Flanagan6 Comments 





Some years ago, on a dangerously cold morning, an elderly woman knocked on our door and stumbled in. She was nearly frozen to death. Her name was Rose. She’d locked herself out and had been walking the streets to stay alive. We wrapped her in blankets, gave her tea, and called her children.





I didn’t think to offer a warm bath to raise her body temperature, so she shivered violently until her family arrived. She survived, but her frost white image looms when I am chilled to the bone. I could have done more.





My fearful fellow fallibles,
what is it you regret?
Thoughtlessness?
Little lies? Big lies?
Always choosing beige
instead of burgandy?
Inadvertent harm?
Premeditated acts?
Kindness withheld?
Staying past your welcome?
Walking away too soon?

And my Dearly Divines,
do all things turn
back on themselves?
Or are you burdened
by your mistakes?
Miscalculations?
Are you forever
by definition?
Could there be
such a thing
as Perfection?

When I was young, my beautiful feet ran toward the sun, unaware that I would gradually come undone. Rose has long since died, but in my heart, my negligence lives on. Self-recrimination sometimes leads to forgiveness and compassion. Sometimes, not.





“There’s a reason we did not equip you with clairvoyance,” Open Ways declare, smiling.





Self-pity engulfs me. How does anyone ever get it right?





“Suck it up, Buttercup,” Open Ways snickers. “That’s not a good look on you.”





I retreat to a stack of boulders rounded by centuries of tumbling downstream and sit wringing my hands to signal that I’m old and helpless. Sun laughs. Birds laugh. Hollyhock seeds scatter as they laugh. The stones themselves guffaw with such glee that they become utterly unstable. The absurdities of existence are hilarious. 





Hairline cracks appear everywhere, and I am now aware that I will soon be swallowed whole. In the merriment. I absolve myself. I will never be enough.   





The Largenesses and Open Ways are playing poker in the shade. They wave and deal me in. No doubt my face will betray me as I wager away my prospects and fold, but I’m at peace with that. The alternatives are few, and quite unappealing.