Wearing the Pants

When I was growing up, I went to church --
A church that preached that women should wear skirts
Or dresses only -- look the woman's part --
Wear blouses only, never pants and shirts.

We also learned that sex was bad outside
Of holy matrimony -- genuflects
Before your God if sex should cross your mind --
But tell us don't and all we think is "sex!"

You first take off her shoes, and then you must
Unbutton, then unzip, then pull the pants
Down over her wide hips, then pull her panties
Down, off before the two of you can dance.

Lift up her skirt -- that's almost all you need
To do. You want me to refuse to fuck
When you make easy access to the goal?
When she can straddle me, begin to buck?

Well, I'm no hypocrite. My sexual scenes
Were only with young women in blue jeans.

Fighting the World

I stepped out of the piney wood and stood
Upon a river bank. The river roared
In turbulent and white-capped green. A good
Eye could not see across, though deep it bored.

Yet, halfway out, a boat. A person rowing
And pulling hard against the current, aimed
Upstream, a Red Queen in the rapid flowing
At best, but often losing what he'd claimed.

"My friend!" I yelled above the roar and mist,
"Why must you fight so hard against the flow?"
A leafy log flowed at him, barely missed.
The low sun made his shadow slowly grow.

The voice that came upon the air was weak,
"I'm out of water, food. A town's upstream
Where I can get the nourishment I seek.
But getting there's a nightmare, not a dream."

"Why fight the current? Turn around and guide
Yourself downstream. You'll find another town."
A silence as my waves reached him. He plied
Against the waves, but answered, flowing down.

"I don't know where those towns would be, but I
Know there's a town ahead, so I'll go there."
He then lurched back, which prompted my reply,
"The more you row, the more you go nowhere!"

"I don't know if there's towns downstream. I fear
I'll starve unless I go with what is known."
"How long have you been fighting?" "But a mere
Three days in this same spot," I heard him groan.

"You could have found a place by now and gone
Three hundred miles if you'd gone with the flow
The river offers you. Another dawn
And you'll become a lunch for some sharp crow."

"But I'm afraid. Besides, you tell me not
To fight, to just give up. I must fight through!"
"To row within the flow's a fight well-fought --
That life will become beautiful and true.

Don't be afraid of the unknown. Don't fight
The natural currents -- they will ease your life.
You'll fight the rules of life in pain. Delight
Will come when you flow through, around your strife.

You cannot beat the river -- all your hard
Work cannot overcome the water; soft,
The river wears down stones. You've only marred
Yourself. When with the air, the crow's aloft."

At once, the boat lurched with the current, turned,
And disappeared so fast, I could not hear
If he replied. I walked the bank. I yearned
To see where he made port, if it was near.

I walked three days along the river bank,
In mud and briars which held up my way.
And yet, through rain, my spirit never sank --
I knew that I would see my friend one day.

At last, I came upon a town. A boat
Was pulled up on the bank. I asked around
About the man. I heard a rumor float
Through town of him, but he could not be found.

So I went back the way I came, my home
A three-day walk. I heard a croaking crow --
I saw him on the bow upon the tome
That only he and I can ever know.

Typhoon

A spot of warmth, tight twisting, rising air
Atop an ocean, sun-warmed. Rising air

Pulls water, molecule by molecule,
Reforming droplets in the rising air

Until the ocean Fibonacci spirals
Up -- reined, it rains down from the rising air.

The gray clouds rope in rapid rounds to reign
Within the walls that wound the rising air.

When air and water merge, new order forms --
I, Troy, saw ocean land from rising air.