In days of long ago
Villains would steal women –
damsels in distress, we called them –
and tie them to the railroad tracks
A man with a chiseled chin
and a blonde pompadour,
and sometimes a cape,
would come to her rescue
Untying her bonds just in time
Before the Cannonball Express
roared down the tracks
to tear her to shreds
Those damsels in distress
must have been the greatest of
lilies among thorns
for those Michelangelo men to risk
their painstakingly crafted chins
They must have been something special,
those damsels,
Like sirens singing the sweet ballads of Venus
for the thirsty hammer toting heroes of Mars
I’ve never loosed a woman from the railroad tracks
I dropped out of the Boy Scouts
before I could learn about knots
(Some say they learned far too much about tying ropes)
I was never good with pocket knives –
my hands become weak and shaky
under pressure
(Some say the Boy Scouts studied knives far too intensely)
I suspect it doesn’t matter anyhow,
My saving powers
Those damsels in distress wouldn’t want me
to untie them anyway
I’m the henchman of the villain who put them there
The bad guy’s apprentice who found the
Cannonball schedule
and studied the thesaurus
so the boss could sneer his strangely worded taunts
I don’t know them, those damsels
I never knew how to know them
I could never rescue them from their bonds
I’m a poor man’s Joker
An imitation Green Goblin
I suspect no self-respecting damsel in distress
needs a stand-in Superman
with a guilty conscience
to fumble with knots and babble Robin Hood’s proverbs
I suspect they’d rather hear the coming of the train
I suspect they’d rather untie themselves
