Sappho, Salome and Sisters

 

Rambunctious women everywhere,

The brash the bold the fearsome fair,

The dominatrix with her whip,

The nymph in silk and satin slip.

 

You can’t go far in this good land,

Before you meet their motley band,

From childhood they have filled my days,

But I have never learned their ways.

 

My mother, grandma, cousins’ aunts,

Would promulgate their raves and rants,

I waited baited in their tide,

And stirred the fire that lit their pride.

 

That kind of woman thrilled my soul.

The flaming branch the burning coal,

And when they seared me to the core,

Still blistered I came back for more.

 

I can’t explain it, nor I should,

In essence they have done me good,

A masochist that may be true,

But not just one among the few.

 

This womankind have paved my way,

Enthusing each and every day,

Some but memory, one to touch,

A poisoned cup and golden crutch.

 

To argue with them clouds the mind,

Their reason neither clear nor kind,

A rationale not made to please,

Designed to force you to your knees.

 

But still as certain and as sure,

We never seem to find the cure,

Instead we dance inside the flame,

And never quite apportion blame.

 

Yet still I’ve loved them bound and free,

For these have been the whole of me,

Expressions fail as words take flight,

For they have been my day and night.

 

But now these women freed from grace,

Are filling almost every space,

And now they even change the law,

So feel the cunning vixens paw.

 

For now too old to force a change,

With no great power to rearrange,

Emasculations close at hand,

Rambunctious women rule the land!