Flannery O'Connor: An Semi-Accurate, Non-Erotic Biography

Flannery O’Connor, Flannery O’Connor
In 1951, the doctors said she was a goner
They said: “Lupus, lupus, lupus!”
And she said: “Holy cow!
I guess I’ll live with mom and raise some peacocks now!”
She raised a hundred peacocks
She wrote a hundred books
At night she went out dancin’ with the gypsies and the crooks.
Her work was Southern Gothic
It wasn’t Kafkaesque
The critics said: “Yo, Flannery, your writing is grotesque!”
She said: “Ooga-booga-booga!
I’m a Catholic wiccan!
When I was just a kid, I had a famous pet chicken!
I liked to eat shrimp, and I liked to eat pie
In 1954 I got a kiss from a guy
He said my lips were limp
And my teeth were hard as stones
He felt like he was makin’ out with skeleton bones.
I wasn’t dead yet, but I was in ‘64
The lupus ate me up and spit me out upon the floor.
And I said Ooga-booga-booga!
Time to meet God! You shall know the truth
And the truth will make you odd.”

Grandma Tap Dance

Grandma Tap Dance—watch her go
Across the stage she shuffles
She’s wearing ancient tap shoes
And a faded dress with ruffles.


She’s shuffling but she doesn't hear
The music's steady beat.
She only knows the music means
She’s s’posed to tap her feet.


She goes in circles aimlessly
And claps her castanets.
She sometimes knows that she’s on stage
But sometimes she forgets.


And when she’s done, the host says
“Ninety-one! Still dancing! Gee!
I think that’s great!
Put money in the hat if you agree.”


Clink, clink—here come the pity coins
“She’s ancient, after all.”
“She didn’t really dance, but hey
At least she didn’t fall.”


And Grandma Tap Dance, now offstage
Is in a chair, asleep
Her body sags, she looks like
Skin and ruffles in a heap.


Her daughter takes the coin hat
And she lets her mother snooze
Ten bucks, twelve cents—not terrible.
She leaves to buy some booze.


And Grandma Tap Dance dreams she’s young
She’s barely come of age
She’s dancing oh-so-beautifully
Across a lighted stage.


She leaps and shimmies, spins and slides
Until the curtain closes
The crowd goes wild; the stage is filled
With heaps and heaps of roses.


While Grandma dreams, the daughter drinks
‘Til drinks have drowned her sorrow
“C’mon, Mom, let’s go home,” she slurs
“You’ll dance again tomorrow.”


But Grandma won’t be woken up
For her, the crowd still cheers
The lights! The stage! The roses!
Oh, how real it all appears!


“Wake up, Mom!”—Grandma blinks her eyes
Where is she? How? And why?
Her daughter takes her home
And lets her have a slice of pie.