misogynists: let us not misjudge

misogynists are willing 
to make an exception 
for any who meet or exceed 
their modest womanly ideals. 
I assure you, their ideals 
are both womanly 
and modest. True, 
unassuming, beautiful 
in good shape and pure, 
and naturally willing 
to bestow all of this 
on a misogynist. 

It's pretty ideal. 

Plato believed in ideals, but 
these guys don't want his kind 
of love. They're sick of it, it's all
they've been offered for far too
long and frankly, too pure
for their taste. They want 
the ideal yes, not the ideal no. 

They want the ideal they say 

is untouchable, they cannot realize 
- they want to touch it! And for it 
to be real for once, and touch them,
like so many doubters and deniers,
they teeter painfully precarious

on the brink of any miracle
they could collapse into, some
living and breathing but undeniably
real physical object, come as if
in defiance of all prophecy
to the contrary to redeem
their disbelief with a granted 
much-made wish: in a sudden 
moment teeming with go-time
promiscuity that matures in courses
to short to time to a permanent bond,

with naturally, each
in their proper place. Loving it 

As is only right. The misogynist 
(most of them anyway - the ones 
who seem to want women under
some pretty heavy conditions) does
not "hate" women. He only "hates"
the way women do not live up 
to the classic ideals of womanliness
- forsaken for an emphasis on modern
mores, and the pole position in a cultural
stakes winner-takes-it power jockey
race she stoops to conquer. He "hates"
her in the sense he reveres and craves 
with a craven reverence 

almost touching 

all that she could be, but she
would prefer not to. Incomprehensible
to him that she could abandon such
lofty and storied station, leaving him
standing their with two train tickets
in the rain - and no note. Women
know all the moves in the parts
and plays they eschew, and he
- honestly, a man - is left

to kick high and moan in chorus 
with his hated fellows: "O woe 
and I are old good friends, etc."
Do not 
misjudge
the misogynist. When
It would be so easy not to 
misjudge. I mean, how much
more evidence could a case like
this even bear? Image coming to
the wrong verdict, when they've
already taken the stand and said 

so much 

in their defense, I don't think 
we could really misjudge.