31

My body is my body. I’m not bothered what you think of it.

It’s carried me through all these years no matter what I’ve thrown at it.

The marks on my flesh; the scars on my organs

They’re trophies from my battles with the metaphoric gorgons.

I’m feeling freed from the cycles of love and hate and love and hate

Now I’ve relinquished thinking on self-comparative debate.

Some people get my name wrong and they pronounce Georgina

But I’m not diminutive in stature or demeanor.

Dubbed as weird, mad, aggressive and crazy

Because the clarity I see, to them, is hazy.

Censored by illiterati, told I’m inappropriate.

Asked if I was born with bollocks, labeled frigid, called a slut.

I’m conscious of all my decisions, chosen to remember them

At times when I am finding out if they were right or they were wrong.

I don’t claim omniscience. I hold intelligence in awe

I’d rather know I’m ignorant and perfectly flawed

For the journey’s earning’s learning in its absolute form

And it gives your seasons reasons for your earthly sojourn.

They say “Don’t get her started” and “Not again, here we go”

When engaging in discussion and opinion of their point is low.

This is my elixir, though. This heady mix of raw debate.

With sowing of seeds and the joy to watch them germinate.

Frustrated by the limitations I cannot see

That seem to bind most others to a life semi-free

With their worries of decorum or etiquette or saving face.

I’d like to rip their blinkers off, put Technicolor in their place.

You’ll never know what you could be if you never try

And then you’ll blink and you’ll be at the end of your life.

I’ve seen too many dreamers go to holes in the ground

And damsels in distress choosing to wait to be found

By princes preoccupied with kissing the seeming dead.

I can’t understand why they don’t rescue themselves instead.

I love Lara, Xena, Tank Girl and Janeway

For standing up and counting, for doing things their own way.

Ignoring real heroines, a culture habitual.

The women on that list were completely fictional.

I’m not sold on the Lady myth. Keep your expectations.

Sell them to someone who’ll accept that degradation.

Do you want your daughters to grow up with choice?

Then encourage them to speak in an authorative voice.

Teach everyone to accept that “no means no”

But it also means “stop asking” and “leave me alone!”

If someone cannot answer it’s still not consent

And you don’t get to decide what unconscious people meant.

Those lines that you claim are blurred beyond compare

Are clear as Autumn air, no matter what clothes you wear.

Attraction’s not a circumstance of pink and blue

So stop trying to squeeze a right foot in a left hand shoe.

I stole that line from Carroll, from the Man Upon A Gate

But unlike him I know that there is too much to relate.

For the journey’s earning’s learning in its absolute form

And it gives your seasons reasons for your Earthly sojourn.

There is too much to discover for to ever be bored

And you’ll find its only you who is even keeping score.

So accept your physicality and mistakes of the past

For your time here is limited and goes pretty fast.

Do you honestly want your last thought to be

“I didn’t spend enough time just being me”?

Garnering Respect

Iconoclasts

have come, at last

to save us from this drudgery.

This too-easy, this clear to see

hegemony.

But icons as they are say what

They want and not

the truths we seek;

brutally bleak, more earnest than just

freakishly banal.

Their hype and zeitgeist distort the swarm

redefine the form of normality.

Crudely mis-marketing misogyny and misandry

as pride.

Another cardboard enemy

a Goldstein drawn among us to deride.

A different one allows themselves to be

unformed; unsure; walks clumsily.

This unvarnished personality

without polished paid publicity is kept

as curiosity, held up as sideline eccentric

to reject

at will.

And they will.

Using nebulous concepts like

Standards, or

Breeding, or

Culture

as excuses to slaughter to the screeching of vultures

or whatever altar serves best the purpose being pushed.

And the person being crushed by such faltering disservice

does not stop being a person when you’re hungry for their blush.

Objects made of people will ultimately fail.

“Neither use nor ornament”; it’s the old wives’ sliding scale.

Old wives, old knives, old scores to settle.

Metal measures mettle but the meter always morphs.

Intangible out-fluences – diluting stimulations

Reactionary conflation of the story you would tell

Intrinsic expectation of how disgracefully you fell

from the pedestal they put you on, the one you didn’t build.

It grew beneath your feet in the instant you stood still.

Starlet in the spotlights, frozen, blind, wide-eyed.

Demanding penance for your daring to have a private life.

Sordid little details now publicly discussed.

Using terms like “unladylike” and “ashamed” and “disgust”.

Hold your head up high, dear; fear is something they’ve not earned.

Their weak attempt to dampen your flame that brightly burns

Is just a pissing contest. You’re treading on their toes.

The days of rule by bully-force are coming to a close.

Wither Strength

These memory-threads, they've seen it all.

With sheer relief I watch them fall.

These tresses teased, consuming time

Created an image that was not mine.

Felt myself wither with the plait of each curl

Replaced with conservatories, patios,pearls.

Lachrymose points of fossilized light

Now passive aggressive and weak in a fight.

Almost as if my spirit was there,

Split at the ends and bleached and threadbare.

Menfolk seem saddened, “I preferred it before”

-          Historically, long and loose signified whore.

We have now the Vogue bob, the post-divorce crop

Meaning strong and professional. It’s a visual full stop.

Which brings me to Samson. I read with fresh eyes

The rewritten truth behind legendary lies.

It could never be seen that Delilah had strength

Or that it diminished as her hair grew in length.

She is painted as harlot, as betrayer, as thief

For disabling a terrorist who fought with mules teeth.

He destroyed a temple, killed thousands of men

But Delilah’s the villain? Pah! Think again.

His weakness for women she clearly exploited,

Earned his trust, passed her time and feigned her enjoyment

Over time introducing new tastes to his diet,

Soya, mint, coriander; she urged him, “Just try it.”

These anaphrodisiacs soon did the trick

And he gaped in dismay at his treacherous dick

As limply it hung there, refusing to play.

Delilah masked joy, knew the wrong words to say;

“What’s wrong with you Sammy? Are you not a man?

I've seen palm dates bigger. You’re reputation’s a sham”

And cruelly she laughed to drive the cut deeper

And insert in his subconscious brain a long sleeper.

Watching him crumble as once more she spoke:

“Your technique is shoddy and your cum face a joke”.

Her mission completed, her own head threads shorn,

Disguised as a man she escaped with the dawn.

To protect his secret and bury his shame

He shaved his own head and passed her the blame.

As excuses for impotence (don’t come) but go

This one is dramatic; distracting; for show.

And sad it is too, that his gore-fest career

Was ended through self-induced rumour mill fear

And not, as you thought, by his shiny bald pate.

Perhaps now a few more of you can relate

To a parable apropos basing your ego

On something as fragile as hair or libido.

And now you should know what’s important instead

Is the beauty and joy that’s found inside your head.