The glittering baubles that women pursue

Female presidential candidates are also battered by professional consultants who claim to understand voters, and who tell them to be strong but approachable, warm but steely, mom but dad, young and bouncy but wise and grave. These operatives are the swarming locusts of politics, eating all in their path. They never say, “Let’s just settle down and be mature, as the moment seems to demand it.” Male candidates face this too, but for women it is more so—more nervous and defensive.

WSJ  @Peggynoonannyc 

The glittering baubles that women pursue,

that men in the past kept from their dainty view,

now include leadership roles in the state,

CEO honors, and top magistrate.

Gone are the days when a woman would toil

with suckling infant and hot Crisco oil.

Schooled in hard science and quite self assured,

they've learned to be fearless from all they've endured.

The pendulum swings and our age has arrived

at a time and a place where no woman's deprived

of all that she ever has wanted to be,

and we can dispense with all male sophistry.

And thus as the year twenty-twenty draws near

running for Prez is a woman's career.

Whether from Congress or bizness or home,

gal candidates across the country do roam.

They're proud and mature, and have something to say

that men cannot utter in just the same way.

These women have pondered about what's to do

to bring glory back to the Red, White and Blue.

And while I'm inclined to applaud their desire

to bring to the campaign both reason and fire,

I wonder how many of the fairer sex

will actually run starting this year, or next.

Forgive my disquiet as I contemplate

opening up such a potent floodgate;

as more and more women decide with relief

that THEY ought to be our Commander-in-Chief.

From corporate boardrooms the women will march

to give the campaign expertise and some starch.

From schools and academies women depart

to run with their soul and their brains and their heart.

Stores must close up as they lose their cashiers,

and pole dancers leave as men cry in their beers.

Housemaids and even the svelte ballerina

start in campaigning at park and cantina.

They know how to raise a tremendous war chest;

for women, at funding, are simply the best.

No bank can refuse them; no pinched billionaire

resists when referred to as "my teddy bear."

Please do not declare I'm a male chauvinist;

since men, for their funding, great buttocks have kissed.

I'm only attempting to paint a true scene

of what women running will actually mean.

I know it's a cliche and threadbare old trope,

but men without women to help have no hope

of living a decent and happy existence

without women's expert and charming assistance.

If women are gone on the campaigning trail,

we men left behind will most certainly fail.

We'll die from starvation, and loneliness too;

we'll forget how to breathe while our faces turn blue.

However, I shall not attempt to implore

women to come back to home or to store.

They have ev'ry right to go off on their own

to seek education or wealth or a throne.

When back from campaigning, please don't be averse

to treating us better -- though we deserve worse.

We'll try to do better, to shave and to please --

as soon as we find those doggone lost car keys!

***********************

"The Poet Laureate of the New York Times Newsroom."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/reader-center/newsroom-poet-laureate-limericks.html

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