James Hart (21.06.53 / Grappenhall, Cheshire)

Oats
Wild oats
My wild oats
Sowing my wild oats?
Since when did I have any wild oats to sow?

Middle age brings on the nostalgia for an enfance perdue
I would act differently now,
Gone wild with girls and boys
No doubt caught some venereal disease
But hopefully not AIDS

It is now that I have studied
And learnt that fornication
Viewed linguistically
Is from furnix,
the bridge where prostitutes hung out

So the prohibition if there was one
Was against prostitution, the abuse of women
Not against sex before marriage
With a loving partner
In a consensual relationship
And probably one leading to marriage.

How would that have changed me?
Would I have taken up some of the offers?
Male as well as female,
In Durham as well as in France?

Too late now but the will is still there
To love everyone, well almost, and sleep with many
Nothing worse though than a middle age man
Trying to live like a teenager

Wild oats are for the young,
With the old they are sour grapes.

©2009
James Hart