The Dancer

By GlosKat

Wed, 18 Feb 2026
  • 141 reads
13 comments
 

She dances

For the men

For the money

For the food it buys.

 

She dances

With a flash of her teeth

And the beat of the drum

And the stamp of bare feet.

 

She dances

In the half light

By the flames of the fire

With a swirl of her shawl.

 

So the men don't see

She is old now

And tired of dancing.

Certificate U
Poem

Comments

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

poignant. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thank you Rhiannon.  

 

Submitted by celticman on

quite a high kick in the false teeth kinda ending, which adds realism. I've got that meme 'she's a dancer' playing in my head. 

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thanks CM.  While I was writing it I had Cher in my head !

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Gypsies, tramps, and thieves
We'd hear it from the people of the town
They'd call us gypsies, tramps, and thieves...

 

Has Cher really moved to South Cerney?

 

But for the poor woman in your poem it's a short career and a rough life. On the main road from here to Sofia we see young women standing in lay-bys, advertising themselves. They're always either gypsies or refugees, and I feel desperately sad for them. I've been tempted to write about them in the past but I don't know where to start and I don't know where they end up. They're neither prosecuted nor protected by the police. I don't think there's anything that anyone can do to help them.

But well done to you for writing this.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Thank you Turlough.  I remember being on holiday in Turkey, and driving out of the towns we would see very young girls, just teenagers, standing in the lay-bys.  Our driver told us, in a very matter of fact way, they were waiting for the lorry drivers.  

I meant the poem as a metaphor for how women can feel obliged to stay young and beautiful to be worth men's attention. 

There is a line in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, which has stuck in my mind.  Shirley is asking a male friend what he is looking for in a wife.  One of the things he lists is 'pretty enough to  love'.  So the idea goes back a long way. 

With social media, internet dating, photo-shopping, AI, all the invasive procedures easily available to tweak your face or body, I think that pressure on young women to conform to an ideal is only getting worse.

But very interesting that you took it more literally.  I hadn't thought about those young teenage Turkish girls in years.  They'd be in their forties now, so god knows what happened to them.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

I got what you meant in your poem about pressure on women to stay young and beautiful. It seems to happen in almost all walks of women’s lives whether they be gypsies in a layby, shop workers, news readers, pop stars or the wife of the president of the USA. But the lower down the earnings ladder they are, the greater the pressure is and the crueller the effects of failure.

I wonder what happens to the girls in the laybys when they age beyond what the traffickers consider marketable, and I wonder what happens to the less attractive sisters of the girls in the laybys.

I remember seeing KT Tunstall (a brilliant Scottish singer-songwriter who you probably know) being interviewed on telly. She was saying how lucky she was to get a contract at the age of 28 because most record companies considered that to be far too old. For the past twenty years female pop stars have needed to be more like porn stars to find success.

And I hated the treatment that Susan Boyle was subjected to.

It’s all so very wrong.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Totally agree, and thank you for the empathy. God help any woman in the public eye, even if her job is nothing to do with looks, who doesn't conform to an ideal of beauty.  

 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Sadly, you get nowhere without conforming. I cringe when I think of some of the things I had to agree with that were said by people I didn't like while I was trying to earn a living.

Yuk!

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

It's one of the (surprisingly many) joys of getting older that you can think/say/do what you like without having to fit into some kind of a mould.  Like that wonderful Wendy Cope poem When I Am Old.

 

 

Submitted by celticman on

over a million on diet injections, mostly women, trying to fit in with a model in their head, fed to them by the media. But to be honest, I'm guilty too. Farah Fawcett was my lover, but I chucked her when she got old and hackett. 

 

Submitted by celticman on

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly23mrv68ro

dancer at 71. 

 

 

Submitted by GlosKat on

I read that myself this afternoon !  But I was very disappointed they didn't show her in the video.  I suppose it's copyright.