FIFTH HOLE SYMPHONY

There are sights and sounds and colors one can never quite forget
Interspersed with situations; years may pass, they linger yet!
  But there's one that jams the button, takes the rag right off the squaw,
  Just try going to the Johnny in an Adak williwaw!

First you struggle through the tundra to the leeward of a dune
Where the grasses whistle sharply, with an eerie pulsant tune,
  And the buffets slap you smartly, in defiance of all law
  Till you reach the writhing Johnny dancing in a windy draw.

Struggle through it's flapping doorway where the "Only" sign lies prone,
And untie your rain repellents while the tentpoles creak and groan;
  Lower one more set of trousers; perch yourself upon the seat --
  While the anguished wall tent shimmies, to a wet tarpaulnic beat.

Now it crouches like a lion; now it rears like any colt;
Quivers like a frightened stallion or a mare about to bolt.
  Then it lunges at it's tent pegs while the end poles chuck and dance,
  And the whipping doorflap spatters muddy water on your pants.

Here's no place for contemplation; here's no haven for a pipe.
Every single indication hollers "Hurry up and wipe!
  "This here tent has got air minded; taking off most any time--"
  Something stings your royal bottom!  That's a blast of windblown lime!

Hastily you do your business in a cataclysmic moil
Shot with borborygmous belchings; yammerings of travailed toil
  Goonish whoops and hammered groanings; buckling slaps and cries of fear,
  Till you reach for wiping tissue. (Careful or you'll wipe your ear!)

For the seat has joined the lurching and the hole-boards start to grind
You'll be sausage in a minute!  Then a lull--the fiends are kind!
  There's a moment for the buttons--crouched beneath that wind-sagged ridge
  (While the five holes whine an anthem).  But be careful of your bridge!

For a windy constipation grabs that can in heaving grunt,
Till a diarrhoetic shudder makes the whole damned structure shunt.
  In one peristalsic impulse never dreamed by old Chic Sales,
  Or a race of Quartermasters reared in ignorance of gales.

Out you go and leave it quaking; leave it gathered for the last
Mighty belch that sends it skyward in a final fecal blast.
                     **************************
  In the mornings of the future when you squat to nature's law
  You'll remember that wild Johnny dancing in a williwaw.

                                               TRH
                                               12/15/42.