Image borrowed from YahooIt can be hard to do the hustle
while wearing a bustle, though I think
I remember Mae West doing it several times
while crossing a room in front of Cary Grant--
no, maybe it was little Miss Alice Faye
in LILLIAN RUSSELL, or IN OLD CHICAGO--
or was it Jeanette MacDonald shaking it with
class in NAUGHTY MARIETTA, or in THE
MERRY WIDOW, or was it Ava Gardner moving
like a gazelle in rut in SHOWBOAT?
George Bernard Shaw once said after seeing
Margaret Leighton in costume for his play
ARMS AND THE MAN, “A woman wearing
a bustle was like watching a snail wear a dress.”
Women of the Victorian era wore that bustle,
masking their natural charms with a fashionable
bubble butt, moving from voluminous crinoline
to a pronounced hump shape at the back
of the skirt--looking like an Al Capp cartoon
rendition of the perfect hourglass figure--
posterior just as protruding as bosom.
Most of us are unabashed proud pygophilists,
but men specifically can let loose of reason,
and become so distracted they fall over furniture
or crash their car while staring at a young lady
with a shapely backside.
My own puberty emerged during the 1950’s
when a large bust and ample posterior were
the apex of eros, the height of sexuality--
Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Sophia Loren;
the lexicon of tight skirts was inexhaustible.
The bulky bustle was replaced with the girdle,
and thanks be to the lingerie gods that the girdle
was replaced with no-line pantie hose, bikini
panties, and skin-tight trousers and shorts--
so that the boys on the corner can gawk,
pop their gum, wolf-call, whistle, pant, clap,
and snap pics with their cell phones while
inevitably the conversation rotates to the bottom;
“Damn dude, did you see the derriere, backside,
butt, booty, bootie, bottom, breech, bum, buns,
ass, sweet cheeks, caboose, can, buttocks, duff,
fanny, hams, haunches, heinie, nates, keister,
keester, posterior, rear end, rump, seat, tail,
tush, tushie, tuchis, glutes, aft, stern, or poop
on that babe?”
“Yeah man, I’m afraid to move since there’s no
blood left in my head and I may pass out!”
And most probably none of the smitten will
have ever set eyes upon the famous
George Seurat painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on
the Island of La Grande Jatte”, where the bustled
ladies strolled with their frilly parasols and huge hats,
and received the same results in 1901.
Glenn Buttkus
January 2010
Listed as #55 over on Magpie Tales 49
Would you like the Author to read this poem to you?
11 comments:
thank goodness for comfy clothes-I cannot imagine being squeezed, tied up etc on my clothes!
Clever and humorous take on the photo!
I adore George Bernard Shaw. Never heard his charming comment about the bustle and the snail. Always fun to hear you read, Glenn.
... you forgot Jayne Mansfield! Ah, the 50's! No better time to be a kid.
Nothing ever changes when it comes to a shapely backside!
Sorry, couldn't get past that gorgeous butt to read the words. :)
xoxo
Glenn,
This is great!
By the way, did you ever see The Outlaw?
Being Catholic in the 50’s, it was condemned by the Vatican. I finally scored in Chicago.
My thought was “Hey shove it up your silk underpants, Cardinal Spellman!”
Bill
A poet with a butt fetish? A very fine one, too . . .
Not much of a connection to the Magpie Mr Linky you used, though, is it? !
lol, thanks for the vocabulary lesson...I think you covered every slang term for bottom there is!
I love to see and hear of the legacies of such women, but sure am glad its no longer a required part for us to play.
Hee-hee. The Victorian age was my least favorite time. I think I would have gone mad to live in that era.
Post a Comment