....Sara at the Coliseum.... 

Friends, Romans, put down your beers. 

I stand here before you 

with a story of great import. 

‘Tis a telling of heroic proportion… 

nay, legend. 

Visualize if you will, the Coliseum. 

A Coliseum soaked not with blood, 

but with hooch. 

Yes, hooch. 

Booze. Suds. Liquor. Libation. 

Alcohol if you will. 

Take a hit. 

Cannonball that. 

The next warrior 

is about to enter the arena. 

Kick an empty beer bottle across the floor. 

Ah… Now that’s poetry. 

Sling a thousand bottles down the Coliseum’s steps. 

That’sa proper fanfare. 

Yes, and there amidst the 

din of shattered glass… 

Listen.

For lo, but beneath earthy floorboards 

you can hear the roar of the beasts, 

and how they bellow for more spilt pilsner! 

And now, 

out from the ranks of 

our downed and vanquished gladiators, 

A chant arises. 

“Sara. Sara. Sara.” 

[And at this point , 

the narrator is forced to interject with, “Sara? 

What the heck kinda’ 

name for a warrior is that?”

Never-mind.]

Yes.

The games call for another victim.

And yet 

there is no victim. 

What you have here 

is the deadliest of poet warriors. 

No mere bone cruncher, 

but poem cruncher. 

Her words are sharp. 

Her verse heavy as a lead mace. 

Yeah, but she strides forward 

into the arena and 

an ocean of ankle deep lager 

rises to part before her. 

Her armor of choice is unusual. 

Yes, sports fans. 

Today Sara appears to have chosen 

an oversized knit cardigan, 

and beneath that, 

low-cut denim jeans 

with just a hint of a dark t-shirt. 

Menacing stuff indeed, 

but such sinister fashion 

has been lost on the 

inebriated masses. 

Perhaps this nondescript apparel 

was designed to make her 

appear invisible. 

Indeed,

though her fellow gladiators 

know of her presence all too well, 

to the drunken hordes 

arrayed about the coliseum, 

she is persona non grata. 

No matter. 

Sara circles around to square off 

before an archaic microphone 

circa 2003 BC,  

and settling into a broad stance, 

words begin to dart forth 

and thrust outward. 

Where all previous poet combatants 

had chosen bludgeoning verbiage 

via heavy bladed broadsword, 

Sara’s attack comes by way of 

exquisite rapier. 

Its shimmering surface 

projects a vocal glissade 

out to the arena’s far reaches. 

Indeed, there at the back of the Coliseum, 

one of the inebriated spectators pauses 

mid broken bottle to ocular socket 

and remarks, 

“Hey dude! She’s talking’ ‘bout sex!” 

Yes. Oh, Yes. 

Sara’s talkin’ ‘bout sex. 

The punters way up in the bleachers 

ease back their oral fixation 

upon long neck liquid phallus’ 

and rack bleary eyes 

towards the lethal siren 

behind the microphone. 

The murmur from the back row 

sweeps forward. 

“Sex?

Oh yes. Sex good. 

Sex is our friend. 

We like sex.” 

Yes. Sara’s talkin’ ‘bout sex, but hey! 

This ain’t a dirty poem. 

Hell, the dirty poems 

are up in the bleachers. 

[Oh yea, and also what’s going on 

underneath that table right there.]

No. Sara’s serving up clean sex. 

Keen edged clean sex that 

skewers the soft pink eardrums of 

each and every booze binging Roman. 

[Um…

Except, you know, 

for those there distracted 

beneath that table.] 

A poetic martial art, 

her wordsmith utterances slither forth 

to slice Roman cerebellum with 

double edged XY chromosome. 

Yes. If Sara bleeds, 

she bleeds pure estrogen. 

An estrogen of such might 

that it vanquishes every 

testosterone laced, 

booze braced poet 

who ever preceded her. 

And then… 

And then some blotto Roman 

pulls his thumb from his waistband, 

raises it above the table before him 

and wraps it around the lip 

of a longneck Budweiser. 

With this, one hundred thousand 

toga attired bacchanalian sots follow suit. 

Yes. For a few seconds, 

poetry rolled forth over 

the entire tanked up Roman empire. 

For a few seconds, 

culture and civilization reigned. 

For a few seconds… 

Then some drunken idiot in the back 

got out his fiddle, started to play, 

and the lady at the mic 

was swept away to oblivion. 

Rome may be burning, 

but what the fuck. 

Put another keg on the tap. 

Bring another poet to the slaughter. 

Sara

has left 

the building. 

c 03 Jack Hubbell