At The Ends Of Fairy Tales (Worse-than-stubbed-toes)
At the Ends of Fairy Tales
Birds nearly always pluck out the bad girls’ eyes
while toes are cut away to accommodate
(somewhat bloody) dainty shoes. No surprise
that in the drawn-from-the-thrown-bone world, fate
demands retribution; the happily-
ever-after happier in the here
and now with a side of vengeance snappily
dished out. (‘And, for you, Stepmother Dear,
how ‘bout a barrel of nails, a handy
hill?’) For, in truth (forsooth), bliss that will last
is difficult to depict–all candy
we’ve ever known melts upon first taste, fast
forwards to decay, while the sudden woes
of others engrave our brains (like those lost toes).
(The above is a poem for the dVerse Poets Pub Poetics challenge, relating to fairy tales. Check out the site!)
Explore posts in the same categories: poetryTags: manicddaily, poem about Cinderella and the cut-off toes of stepsisters, poem about fairy tales, poem about retribution in fairy tales, poems about Grim grimm fairy tales
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ManicDDaily 
March 17, 2012 at 11:12 pm
um, i wanna keep my toes…i think someone else mentioned too what happens after happily ever after…and i was initially thinking the hero and heroine but also the periphery characters as well..are the bad ones really that bad…or the good as much…i am sure there are times not all glitters….
March 17, 2012 at 11:13 pm
Ha! I was always shocked by the endings in the real versions of the stories. They are tremendously bloody! The wicked definitely get their come-uppances! A bit strange in a post p.c. world. K.
March 18, 2012 at 2:50 am
smiles..i wanna keep my toes as well… and yep..you’re right, the wicked def. got their fair share of trouble in the end…but that’s also the magic of fairy tales in a way…that no matter how bleak it looks and how close the other side is to win…there will always be justice in the end…if it would only be so easy in real life to divide the characters into good and bad..there’s a lot of grey territory in between…and that’s reality..
March 18, 2012 at 8:33 am
I want to keep my toes too…but some people say its justice or retribution….I think you reap what you sow….
March 18, 2012 at 10:28 am
Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far actually. I think, unfortunately, that lots of bad things happen to good people.
March 18, 2012 at 10:02 am
That’s my favorite aspect of fairy tales, and was as a child, the reward of virtue is mainly the revenge of the abused, which outranks candy in our nasty little primate minds any day. Children have very bloody little minds, because they don’t know enough about where blood comes from. Loved this, K–and the drawing of the throbbing toe at top as well.
March 18, 2012 at 11:02 am
Superb explanation of why we should not fables seriously or simply that we must remain aware of how the real world require us to adjust ideals as circumstances arise? Sorry for the rhetorical question, but it orients my thoughts around the import of your poem. Your lines have a stark irony about them, which draws into relief the contrast between reality and dream. I think fairy tales are fine for when we were children, but we grow up and face choices which the tales could not foresee. I think fairy tales can inculcate a disposition to see the world in a certain way, and in that sense form character. Ideally they would create a disposition to adapt the tale to the vagaries of real life. I am not sure that they can do this, though I have not read every fairy tale out there. Perhaps this is a limitation of poetry or literature itself. It can give us that momentary insight into what life’s about but then we must take that insight and make it real. Your poem addresses many of these issues I think, which made it very gratifying for me to read this morning.
March 18, 2012 at 11:05 am
Ha. Thanks, Charles. We read so many watered-versions of fairy tales that undercut some of the real violence and tragedy. K.
March 18, 2012 at 6:01 pm
vengeance seems to lurk everywhere
once upon a polar bear
March 18, 2012 at 10:15 pm
The Grimm brothers would be so proud … never known to sugar-coat anything; good one!
March 19, 2012 at 5:31 am
A witty and elegant contemplation of the happy-ever-after ending.
March 25, 2012 at 10:28 pm
I like the bloody ones better. They feel realer and that makes it all funnier.