Erica Jong - The d**h of Goddesses lyrics

It used to be hard for women, snowed in their white lives, white lies, to write books with that fine frenzy which commends genius to posterity, yet estranges it from its closest friends. Women were friends to all, & being too friendly they could not command the unfriendly prerogatives of genius, though some were geniuses still, destroying only themselves with the torment of the unfriendly ghost trapped in a friendly form. Oh the women who died dissembling friendship for the world! Oh the women who turned the dagger inward when it wished to go out, who impaled themselves on Womanhood itself! No vampire could be as greedy for blood, no father or husband as bullying. A woman punishing herself with her own pain is a fierce opponent indeed. It is self against self, dagger to dagger, blood of her blood, blood of her daughter, blood of her mother, her menses, her moon, all pooled together, one crimson sea. It is the awful auto da fé, the sublime seppuku, Sante Sebastiana as archer & victim too. The arrow flies from her bow. She runs, fleet as Diana, & stops it with her breast. Enough! cried the Women-Who-Cared. Henceforth we will turn our anger where it belongs. We will banish the whitest lies. We will speak the black truth as it is. Our father- we spit back their s**m. Our husbands- we spit back their names. Our brothers- we s** back our love. The self-righteous inherit the earth, & anger speaks louder that love. Love is a softness the weak cannot afford, & s** a Darwinian bribe. But who wants the earth as a gift when it is empty as space, when women grow hard as bronze madonnas & Diana loves only her stag? When Persephone stays in hell the entire year, then how can spring begin?