(For Rush to write 500 times on the blackboard, with his fingernails.)

your mother and your grandmother

and your sister and your wife

and your daughter and her lover

and all the other women in your life

yes I see we have another backlash

like Iron Men* and Hillary

centuries now from Salem

and women are still being pilloried

so they get a box of roses

instead of an ERA

and forget about full health care

haven’t you listened to Rush today?

and even the perverted Catholic Church

wants to put them in their place

and all the candidates are waffling

an unmitigated disgrace

but us girlie-men of yesteryear

would like to thank you on this day

for raising us and loving us

and putting down the toilet seat everyday

it looks like we’ve all got a ways to go

and the nitwits are making confusion

they’re saying that women run the world

some kind of Jung delusion?

if women really ran the world

would we be in Afghanistan?

would a woman be sitting on death row

for using a frying pan on her battering man?

I hope some day you really do run the world

and make us clean up all our messes

and make us stop being assholes

and enjoy what your spirit blesses

so have a good day this Thursday

you really deserve more than one day

cause the bullshit will be back on Friday

ruining everybody’s day

Happy March 8!!!

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

* I had this ‘cringe’ about Robert Bly and the Iron Men back in the late 80s-90s.  I felt that a bunch of guys sitting around a campfire in the woods talking about their mothers raising them and their fathers not being there for them was somehow kind of…well…guy-bonding…and off the point.  Like:  “Gee, if my dad had been around more, my mom wouldn’t have made me take ballet lessons and clean the litter box.  Hey, pass the tom-toms.  Did anybody bring the night crawlers?  I brought the beer.”  

Now my dad taught me stuff like bowling, baseball, football, pool, shooting guns, boxing, cursing, Polack jokes, gambling, drinking, womanizing–Guy Stuff.  Good thing he wasn’t around all that much.  So, when Iron Men came out, and guys were sitting around the campfires, I wondered what their daddies taught them.  And I wondered what they talked about–like:  “My dad was sure one big asshole.  He used to hit my mom.” or:  “My dad wanted me to join the marines.  He scared the shit out of me.”

Or, did they say things like:  “I wish my dad had taught me how to make a bed.  I could have joined the marines.”  or:  “I wish my dad had taught me how to run a vacuum.  I’m still afraid of vacuums.”

Tom-Toms.  It sounded like some exorcising ritual.  Exorcising what?  And whom?  I may be totally wrong on Iron Men, but I’m going with my gut feeling–that’s what a guy does.

Whatever.  (Guy term)