Poem: "Damsels in Distress"

 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