Pants and Poetry

We will return to pants blogging shortly, but first a rhyming interlude from my poetical book "Beastly Bestiary."

When I am not blogging about pants, I am moose wardening for the U.S. Department of the Interior at Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior.

And when I am not pants blogging or wardening mooses or meese or whatever they are called when you have more than one of them which I often do and in my living room, I am writing poetry about animals.

Such as our friend the echidna, of which there are none in the northern hemisphere, except in cages, the poor things.

ECHIDNA

Echidna,

What is ya?

An enigma!

I’m not kiddin’ ya.

Like a spiny deep sea urchin,

He waddles, and he’s lurchin’.

He has a birdy snouty straw-type beak,

And squinty eyes through which he peeks.

With a tongue that’s sticky and protrusible,

He leaves Aussie anthills all unusable.

A monotreme extreme, he seems

A creature from a Dali dream.

Since echidnas all have quills,

Mating is a thorny thrill.

He-chidnas travel in a train,

Nose-to-tail, a dozen, down the lane—

For weeks lovelorn, they waddle and abstain.

At last, the strongest shoves the others off

While she-chidna is treed and scoffs.

For the winner, there is no goofing off, no rest, no sleep

He digs a trough, a moat ten-inch deep.

With no escape and being penned,

Quickly our prickly Rapunzel descends.

Into her he, so as not to offend, backs in.

Some g’days later, out struggles the puggle!

To you, mom and pug may seem most uggle.

But in her eyes, to love him is to gnome.

Thus, happy ends our one-kid ma poem.

---

Echidnas don't wear no pants, but they are some tough little guys.

What Men in Pants Like (#1 in a Series)

Smokin' hot silent movie babes

Louise Brooks

What Fred's Pants Think

"I just put my feet in the air

and move them around."

Fred Astaire,
Britches-wearin' man,
A real guy.

She Left Him

2.

            I was part of the plan.

            Here at the evening poolside party.  Media mogul's place. Hamptons. The ocean breeze dreaming in. In the tent. For donors to the ballet. Swank city.

            I was happy he'd put me on, and I was hoping I was making a difference. You see, his girl had left him. Run off.

            All the women at the party thought he looked dangerous. Heck, all women thought he was trouble.

            And he was.

            Maybe it was his jaw line. Or his eyes. There was something menacing about them. About all of him, actually. He made his way in the world doing deals, swooping in. The way a hawk would. Or maybe they thought he was a risk, a big one, by the way he held himself, his back to the bar, leaning against it, one foot on the rail.

            A real cowboy. In Armani.

            He's rough and refined. Like me.

            I'm uncreased. Like his face. I'm a pair of twill linen trousers. Beige-y doesn't sound masculine enough. Think sand. Think dust. Think severe. Severely nonchalant. Frankly, I could be a pair of pajama bottoms, so relaxed, my cuffs pooling around his ankles.

            Confused? Don't be. Think nightclothes.

            It's those eyes of his, taking everything in. All the ladies in their gowns. So much plumage, so many sequins and beads, so much chitter chat. A few hens. But mostly chicks, the long-legged kind. His fingers plied the stem of his martini glass. He liked stems. A lot.

            He brought his girl to this little evening thing thinking she would like it. Had a fantasy she might get loose, go crazy nuts, go for a dip. Maybe he'd jump in, too, though he knew he never would. Something people would talk about for years. It would be legend. He would enjoy watching her. He liked watching her.

            But all she did was pout, all the way from the braised beets and arugula through the poached trout to the raspberries and crème brulee.

            Then he said something she took wrong. She snarled at him and got up to leave. He grabbed her wrist. Hard. He could have broken it. He was that kind of man. But she shook loose of him and went off into the night, a shoe falling off. Just like in the fairy tales.

            Except there's no black patent leather in Grimm's.

            He knew it was inevitable she would leave him. It broke his heart.

            You'd never see it on his face. No way. No how. You'd never even know he had a heart, looking at him.

            His jacket's off and on the bar. Too hot for that, even with the fresh wind. Like him, it's structured and loose, all at the same time. And on the jacket? Her shoe, brand new.

            She would have to come back for that, now wouldn't she? He was waiting. Patient. That's what his clients paid him for. His self-discipline. He would forgive her for her childish behavior. He knew her all too well.

            

            And his shirt. I don't mean to draw attention away from myself, but it was so sheer it would have been barely acceptable if a woman had been wearing it. Really. Cuffs rolled to his elbows.

            There's something relaxed and coiled about him—all at the same time. Like he's about to explode or dissolve. More likely neither. Just locked-jaw tension. Think Kirk Douglas—the movie star whose best roles were that of a boxer, a saxophone player, Van Gogh, and a U.S. Navy destroyer officer who also happened to be an alcoholic. And a rapist. Not a cat with whom to mess.

            There he is all easy. At the bar. Acting like nobody saw what had happened.

            Then she comes up. Up in his mind. Like a champagne bubble rising.

            Better put, She. Capital 'S.' It's the most feminine letter—all curves. Sibilant, too, and smooth.           

            He watches her professionally shed the geezer chatting her up. That old bore. Money talks, but not with her.

            She comes over, her falcon eyes leading the way. They locked in on him, and she came across the space. I wish I could say she floated, lissome, but there was this....mmm…thrust of androgyny about her.

            They were two of a kind, her in 1920s-style floral-print silk brocade satiny pants. More like lounging pajamas. Shoes? Gold silk faille. Her top? A sheet net bodysuit aswirl with vines, a chinoiserie pattern of beads, rhinestones, cabochon stones. Blooming roses just happened to adorn her nipples.

            A pixie do. A real Louise Brooks, she was.

            Dangly earrings. A real cascade, she was. A controlled avalance of a woman.

            Neck like a swan's, a bird. All song.

            "Hey, mister," she said, cozying up next to him, touching his forearm with the very tip of the laquered nail of her index finger. Quite feminine. Quite bold. "Buy a girl a drink?" she asked. She didn't flutter her eyelids or blink.

            He smiled thinly at her, looking down into her green eyes. She was tall, especially so in heels, but he was taller. He did not like what his cock was doing. Better put, what she was inspiring his penis to do. Which was pay attention. To her. I didn't mind. Plenty of room in me in which to secrete one's self. Capacious, I am, hider of many secrets.

            He changed his position, putting a hand in my pocket, deep, the better to conceal his feelings. Don't want to let a gesture give a thing away.

            "Happy to oblige, Missy," he replied, his hand balling. That was what people called her—Missy. Her real name was something agonizingly Mayflowery like Florence Mildred Evangeline Brewster Winslow. Of course, no one ever called her any such damn thing. As far as he was concerned she was Miss Chief, the chief mistress of mischief.  A lot of trouble she was, especially between her thighs. She had athletic thighs.

            "Give the lady what she wants," he told the bartender.

            "Shot of Jack," she replied. "Neat." Without looking at the bartender, her eyes locked on his, high on him.

            "Shot of Jack," he laughed. "Neat. What kind of drink is that for a woman?"             Intentionally, he did not say, "What kind of drink is that for a lady?"

            Not replying, she asked, "What are you drinking?"

            "I'm drinking you in, good lookin'." He straightened up so he could be even taller than her, and he stepped back a bit to better absorb her. Such dove-like breasts. Conspicuous, yet hidden. Wasn't that always the way with women?

            Wasn't that always the way with him, I wondered.

            She put a hand on one hip and did that thing that women can do with their hips. Which men notice.

            "And are you drunk yet?" she asked.

            "I'm getting' there," he replied. He found himself staring at her lips. They were compelling—parted, glistening.

            Women were always doing things to him, and he would catch himself staring at their fingernails or hair or elbows. Her lips were moist. Like she was fresh from the ocean. He wondered if she would taste salty. He took a deep breath and held it in. And he looked away from those lips, a pale red whose name he did not know. He would not let on, not about not knowing a hue, not about nothing.

            "When you get there to Drunktown, let me know," replied Missy. She took the merest sip from her whiskey. If it was a sip at all. The deceiver. How Atlantic she was.

            He didn't say anything.

            "You do that deal with J&J?" she asked.

            "P&G," he replied, bored, looking off in the distance, as though he might catch a glimpse of his girl.

            "It's all about the ampersands to you," she teased. "You don't care anything about the companies you do. Do you?"

            She nudged my cuff with the tip of her pump.

            "The companies I 'do'?" he asked. "Are we being euphemistic?"

            "Very," she replied. "I remember being in your company."

            "I remember being in yours," he said, thinking about their carriage ride in Central Park, the overnight train in Scotland, and the back of his limo at 3 a.m. on New Year's Eve.

            And the ride home in the cab alone after the judge gave the both of them his ruling.

            And a piece of his mind.

            "I felt very well employed," she said.

            "But I had to discharge you," he said. "Non-performance. Thought we had a non-compete."

            "A shame," she said. "I'm happier now."

            "Yes, I heard you found a new position. One you'd never tried before." Then he asked, going a bit too far, "Want me to punctuate you again? Old time's sake. Hostile takeover."

            She knocked back the whiskey, her dangly earrings asway like pendulums. "You're cruel."

            "Like you," he said.

            "Fuck you," she replied.

            "Done that," he said.

            They both looked at their feet. Each other's.

            "So where's your date?" she asked, her eyes glittering at him. "You had a little tiff with her. Everyone saw. Quel scandale."

            Smirking, she applied a hand to his forearm.

            Some comfort, I thought. If insincerity was medicine, she'd be a full bottle.

            "Lover's quarrel," he replied. "She'll be back. She left this." He picked up his girl's Mary Jane, dangling it from a finger.

            "I bought it for her at Saks."

            A 12-year-old girl came running up, breathless.

            Hopping, actually.

            Blond tresses. Ballerina-length dress, peppermint, blue sash at the waist. One shoe.

            "Mom, you and Dad aren't fighting again, are you?" she asked, her arm around him.

            I felt his hand relax in my pocket. He took it out and draped his arm around his girl.

            "Never," he said, looking at Missy. "Never."

           

(From the forthcoming book "The Secret Lives of Men's Britches" by A. Tad Strange.)

What Lou's Levis Have to Say

"My God is rock 'n' roll."

Lou Reed,

Britches wearing man.

A real guy.

The GI Zip-Off

1.           

           

            He doesn't take me out often, but when he does, we do have a good time.

            They call me GI Zip-Off Pants. I'm for when we go fly fishing. In Montana, Chile, New Zealand, Siberia. Even Patagonia, which is fitting, because I'm from Patagonia. The store, not the place. For pants who are wet most of the time, my humor is mostly dry.

            He's the sort of man who ties his own flies. He zips my fly. That's a joke, or something like one, I think. He doesn't need a magnifier for that job. Sometimes he puts me on when he stands at his fly-tying desk. He works the vise, hooks, and thread. Hands of a surgeon. I admire him.

            But the fish are reluctant this time of the year. It's August. They've wised up. They’ve been caught, released; caught, released; and caught and released one time too many. Sly, they refuse dry flies. But grasshoppers are out and about. Fish can be confused, so the man is trying rubber-legged hopper patterns, the ones he's tied.

            Tying flies might make some men curse. Not him. Not once, at least not around me. He's methodical.

            His wife comes, too, on these trips. She likes to. They have a good time. He fishes. She reads books. They've been together a long time. They don't say much. They know each other that well.

            The wife's under a tree, a black hemlock. She's turned sideways, reading, not facing him, blouse celadon, pants emerald, in the shade, sandals off. Her nickname is "Slim." She has cheekbones. She doesn't like her fingers. She thinks they are too long.

            We're waist deep in the South Fork of the Snake River in Idaho. No one else in sight. Funny.

            We're in a canyon—me, him, the wife. They call it "The Canyon." We're down below Palisades Dam. The river's flatter here. Broad. On both sides, the rock rising up is rough, exposed, going up for hundreds of feet, specked with pines on the slopes, the lower slopes and shoreline blanketed with evergreens.

            I'm cool. Tough, but soft, like him. I dry fast. We like to get around. We don't stay uncomfortable. (Elastic waist, but let's not talk about that.) 40-UPF sun protection, whatever that is, built right in for the life of me. You wouldn't think a man's pair of pants would care about UPF sun protection, but that's important to him. I do the work for him. Got to take care of the skin, but you don't want anyone to know you do.

            I'm khaki, of course. But not just any khaki. I'm retro khaki. Old school like his Dad. He was in the war. Carrier-based aviator. Never talked about it. Certain things aren't done. Keep it tight. Otherwise people will know what you are thinking. Not a good thing. Not in his line of business. Not with his responsibilities. Bottom-line stuff.

            The guy who wears me? He's a corporate Something. A big position. I'm not sure exactly what it is. Involves a lot of travel in First Class. Contracts. Drinking with other men, usually in Hamburg and Rio and Tokyo. Cleveland, too. Places heavy on the leather and walnut.

            He likes Japan the most, especially when clients take him to Soaplands. Toruku-buro. He knows a few Japanese words. That's one of them. Amuses the Japs. That he knows that word. Toruku-buro. A good long hot bath. Lathery. Full relaxation. Place where a man can stretch out, extend himself. Really.

            "Hard at home," he thinks.

            He's not home much, so I stay rolled up, ready to go in that brown leather Orvis satchel. Scarred. Everything's ready to go with him—the Sunshade shirts (with sun-protection, too), the Riverwater vest made out of mesh with a ton of pockets, one for the Aquapac for the cell. Only a few people have the number. One might call. The Watermaster waders. Wool socks. The wife, she keeps everything else in the closet organized, but not me and the rest of the gear. He takes care of us himself. He cares.

            The best thing about me? Pockets and lots of them. Two self-draining front pockets. Good for whatnot—crocodile forceps, lures, his Leatherman (he loves it), stream thermometer, line cleaning tool, even a bogagrip. For weighing the catch. There in the river. He's a man who wants to know. When he wants to know.

            A rear zip. He puts a handkerchief there, even though it always gets wet. A gentleman always carries a handkerchief. He's funny. His favorite is a little dainty one. Lacy fringe. Pink. Belonged to his Mother. He wouldn't want you to know that.

            The best of the best things about me? I've got a beer bottle-sized thigh pocket that closes with a zipper. Believe me, I've had German, Belgian, Russian beers in me. And good ol' cans of American Bud, too. Nice feeling to have a tall boy on your thigh. Like a cock that's always hard. His, not so much. These days. That thought might have crossed his mind. He doesn't tell me everything, you know, but a pair of pants doesn't need to be told some things.

            It's all good after you've been out in the river a while. Hot. Cold. Sometimes he takes that bottle out of me in mid-stream. Stands there and has his enjoyment. It's deserved. Long, smooth sips, bottled tipped back, chin up. We could be a commercial on television. That's what he's doing now.

            Long day, no strikes.

            "I'm cutthroating," he yells to the wife on the bank, pulling a finger across the line of his jaw. He's after Cutthroat Trout. If you see red under the jaw, that's a cutthroat. It's a joke he making.

            She looks over for a second. Smiles. Wearing dark glasses. Him, too. Foster Grants. His and hers. Both polarized. She's got a little gray, and it's sexy wavy, but she doesn't think so. She's reading Jane Austen. To be precise, she's re-reading Jane Austen. It's important to her. Such sentences. Mannerly.

            Down river, a bald eagle comes, takes a fish. Off he goes. Up. Flap, flap. Fish wriggling.

            "Man," he whispers. "He got his."

            "Beautiful!" he yells to her. The water makes a soothing sound rushing past him. She doesn't look up.

            "Beautiful!" he yells again. But she doesn't look up.

            He says "Beautiful" again, this time to himself.

            "Hey, beautiful!" he yells. "You missed it!"

            "What?" she says, looking up, startled. Lost in old England. "Missed what?" she yells.

            "Reality," he shouts. "Life and death. Predator and prey."

            She's looking at him, still, knees to her chest, hands folded under her chin, prayer-like, water reflecting off her glasses.            

            "Eagle grabbed a fish," he explains, yelling. "Should have seen it."

            "I did," she says. "I know."

            He sucks the bottle dry, loving the smooth roundness of its lips, and it's back in my pocket, zipped.

            "Calling it a day," he yells.

            She closes the book, looks at him, and says, lips barely moving, "Okay."

            "Okay," he replies.

            He urinates in the frigid water, his warmth going down the length of me.             We're feeling good.

(From the forthcoming book "The Secret Lives of Britches" by A. Tad Strange.)