Is it yet time for all we have awaited – have we quite finished?
So colonised is culture we scant sense where to draw the line.
Perhaps now less between, to toe, than around, to show
that for far too long there’s been more to than fro’.

So, away! hegemon’s scant heroics.
It was for Freedom’s fight and Honourable death, so they say.
Do they really love no greater than this,
playing a theatre’s farce to take shillings for a penny’s return?
High stakes indeed to relegate prudent maid, mother and the other,
as medals, once beribboned to style,
come now purpled for suffering and suffrage.

Be-times men sailed blue to claim a King’s stake in states
that irony named Columbia for a naming’s sake.
But a fleet-launching face sent a thousand toys for Troy’s boys,
and our fey maiden ventured she-names, to singe bearded men-o-war.

O! how we drew, but they never withdrew.
So where, how, and now for the reddest of line?
Barricades, then balustrades, once saw us redline equality’s frontline.
But who sees proof in the darkness?

Criss-crossing the lines made habit of hobby,
so now we must fight the frontier again,
in no longer vain hope that faith and love can prevail.

We tiptoed tight-lipped for too long the tightrope.
A fine line that might matter not,
were it not for un-stately knavish tinnitus
that long made no distance from virtue to vicious.

Quizzing beast, bird and brother ahead of our counsel,
perpetual patrons patronised, for politic brooked no corrective.
Now, no longer foot-lighting this patriarch’s panto,
we shall chime three-by-three, advance and be recognised.

But who can tell from time to time,
to wit what men made, say, of our magic Morgana?
Cynics’ chill calculus conjured a telling device,
that twisted a tale to deny trauma’s hand,
and how passion’s plenty would have bested the rest.
And still to Apples’ Isle they sail her at night, with a knight.

Perhaps then like Godiva, ride out to redress manly levy,
or, as Marianne, stride out and meet man’s mean mastery.
Or, perhaps, go with Boudicca, and chariot virtues to civilise.
But, like all, bear breast to build empires of sense,
for we are now needless of Amazon’s slice to volley our victory.

In enlightening times, clothed like no vain dandy,
mourning maids knew and drew red threads a-neck,
weighing the just ingredients of Liberty, in dread for the headless dead.

Now weighing full measures, we are more Manichea’ than Machiavel’.
No need to un-sex to un-seat,
just call out the damned spots that tarnish just judgement’s blade,
and those that bellow to blunt our keenest edge.
Cruel cuts enough should fell the capital fellows,
the smallest of minds, mincing and mutilating a bonsai orchard,
and crying the ‘best of all possibles’;
confederate dunces still telling tales from the money myth.

What sounds well in the head, sings from a lightened heart
and ‘tis time, plenty-ripened, to banish fear to flourish,
condensation-watered, beneath that glaze a careful stone’s-throw away,
and to vibe for an Aquarian age, understanding peace and love.

A virtuous pledge proclaimed throughout unto all,
from cracked links to no shackle, and un-girdled by Eiffel’s gown,
we toll no promissory note for a Prince’s virtù.
This peal rings proper change, so look what’s ahead –
we can calm the tumult with swift-judging sword, duel Janus for sensibility,
and, on evidence alone, hold the balance of Dike to raft sublime.

Know yourself, prudent world-wise ones, and hurry the crone days,
for these roiling waters bear up the Feminine Divine.
With a bellyful of calming my dear hysterical bitch bird,
we break crest and ask: are we nearly there?
I’d say: long-since, belovèd Sis’.

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International Women’s Day 2019
#HeforShe