Look In The Margins

by Malcolm, under Poetry

They say history was written by the winners

But really, it was the dullards taking notes

Pages and pages of the same old folks


George Washington, seen him before

Cleopatra, yawn, here we go again

And don’t get me started on all those

Film class textbooks about D.W. Griffith

Stop mentioning the racist, chrissakes


What about the absurdly hungry Frenchmen?

Or the English noble who invented the sandwich?

If you ask anyone about Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin

The father of modern conjuring and magic acts, they’ll say

“Oh yeah, that’s pretty cool, uh huh, neat”


Which is why I say to all my fellow historical fanatics

For godssakes, don’t just read the pages as they

Are being presented to you over and over again

If you truly want to make the most out of our time

On this planet, as idiotic as man might have spent it

Instead, look at the margins and the footnotes

Go to the very back of the book if you need to


Because some peoples stories deserve to be told

Like that guy who shot a cactus which then fell on him

Or, let’s be honest, any of those female heroes

Who haven’t been mentioned cause guys

Think they’re soooooo special and important

Speaking as a guy, yeah yeah

Glass houses and all that

But still though!


Look in the margins

I beg of you

Just look in the margins

There are restless souls there

Who need the company