OK OK
I don't post anything for over a month, and then it's two in a row. See you next in April when I can complain about the mess in the garden rather than the mess - well, everywhere else.
Today is International Women's Day and I add my small voice in recognition of the event, and in gratitude that we have such powerful voices as Francesca Albanese still unafraid to speak truth to power.
My poems are light and meant as simple accompaniments to Her Ladyship's morning tea. The record of the broader struggle for all human rights is being written and acted out with unflinching determination in the city ghettoes and war zones of the planet. Give heed to them as well.
From a few years ago:
March 8 - International Women's Day
I'm sure it was some time like this
with spring a month away
that Athen's Lysistrata
with friends, had this to say:
"Men, turn your swords to ploughshares.
Forget the wars you'd win.
You'll get no ploughing here at home
until the crops are in."
And being guys, they thought a bit
but not too long or hard
then shoulder-punched and headed home
to work their own backyard.
Lysistrata's ancient wisdom
may inform our world today
declaring sanctity of life
beyond aggression's sway.
The hope today in women's role,
assuming global power
is that we move the world to peace
in this its desperate hour.
And today, March 8, 2026
Battle Lines (in the war of the sexes)
They got the best lines often
from ancient times to now.
where manly, full expression
the censors won't allow.
Charlotte Whitton, mayor in Canada,
a voice for women all,
gave her opinion to the press
from the nation's capital.
"Gotta do things twice as good as guys
for half the accolades;
thank God it's only half the work
to breach those barricades."
There were suffragettes with banners -
Emmy Pankhurst on parade -
demanding equal voting rights
and equal earnings paid.
Bur best of all the brazen lot
was Lysistrata, back in Greece,
who told the men to stop their wars
or there'd be no kind of peace.
And Mother Eve way back in Eden
had no problem to decide
when told she musn't learn to think?
said, "We're better off outside".
So speak up, every woman,
with all your power and grace.
Your voice in home and parliament
might save the human race.