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 partnered with Oddball Magazine. Stone Soup Poetry now meets from 8-10 p.m. every Monday at the Out of The Blue Art Gallery’s new location at 541 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. The open mike sign-up at 7:30 p.m.

Tonight, Toni Bee hosts the M.A.K. Black Poets Night at Stone Soup Poetry. In honor of Mignon Ariel King, who the night is named after, we include a poem by the

Mignon Ariel King is a third-generation New Englander who was born in Boston City Hospital. She is the publisher of Hidden Charm Press and Tell-Tale Chapbooks. Her poetry has been published in various journals, and four books from her multi-genre autobiographical pentalogy will have been published by the Summer of 2015. A classically-trained scholar, Ms. King holds a Master of Arts in English degree from Simmons College. She is currently writing a book of narrative poetry based on Moby-Dick, as well as her second novella and first book of microfictions.

 

Know It Sounds Funny

I know it sounds funny , but I just can’t stand the pain
–Babe, I’m leaving you tomorrow…

Orange- and blue-plastic coated electrical wires loop
like silly straws around the wood shards peeling from
the post on the corner. It’s the flipside of middle school

here in my temporary ‘burban ‘hood. I keep my totebag
of library DVDs on the seat for five stops. Variety boards
there, so someone might want to sit next to me on the bus.

I’m not confused about what I’m doing here, never was.
But something about me makes people look around, checking
for more of me. It’s always been so, for various reasons.

When I hang out with couples, paired women often scan
the space around me in six-foot still frames, some angry
that I’m not linked to a man. Why in the world would

anybody put chains on me…? Sorry, just me here! I didn’t
bring a man. Wouldn’t need his assistance to hoist a beer
or carry on a conversation if I had. Their men don’t scan.

I toss off a “Puh-lease, don’t annoy me” vibe that makes
average guys wet their pants. They simply assume that
I’m a lipstick lesbian and go back to minding their own

dang business. Doesn’t everything about me announce,
“I’m sooooo not like you. I’m only here cuz my friend is
bicultural: part musician, part mainstream Whitedude.

He wants you to like me”? I don’t give a damn. Yet, I can
be civil anyhow. But the 1960’s wannabes do their
ain’t-we-hip? talk and speak to me as if my freaky looks

and middle-aged lone wolf cameo in Mainstreamville might
indicate like minds. I don’t bother to say anything real, since:
Everybody wants me to be what they want me to be.

But I ain’t happy when I try to fake it. Naw!!! That’s why
I leave the roof deck–after being told my peasant blouse
is “almost pretty” the second my friend is out of earshot.

I could never explain this to him. But I did try. For a long
while. That’s why I’m easy. I’m easy like Sunday Morning.
That’s why I’m easy…easy like Sunday mor-or-or-ning!

[*Song lyrics by Lionel Richie]