OF PANTY-LINES THAT SHOW

1.

Ye Gods, but there are a great many injustices in this world!-- for example:

Injustices to the Poor & the Starving & the Downtrodden; Injustices done by Big
        International Corporations, & their Big Financial Greed;
        injustices to the entire planet Earth & to everyone upon it
        due to Pollution, & plunder & despoilment of The Environment, etc.;
--All of that, of course, ruining things that are beautiful in life for practically Everybody!

--Which is why it really strikes me as odd, to hear so many people
Getting so incensed whenever the subject arises, of the supposedly terrible
        unsightliness

Of panty-lines that show through a woman's jeans or dress or skirt!

2.

As for me, sometimes when--after one of my relatively rare,
        really leisurely, nice big dinners--
I start feeling lazy & semi-stupefied by all the good food; & find
        myself, for a change, in a very good after-dinner mood

I try not to let myself get incensed much less upset about anything,
        for at least that one single solitary rare hour, during a 24-hour
        day (sometimes, even in my dreams, I get troubled about The Way Things are);
& For a change, I try not to take a position on any subject or about anything

--Except that, even in that semi-stupefied, & generally mellowed-out state
        (yes, even then!)
I must admit, I sometimes get annoyed, because frankly I don't see what all the fuss is,
        with both wearers & viewers getting so goddamned vehement so often
Against panty-lines that show through a woman's jeans or dress or skirt!

3.

So yes, then--come to think of it--I suppose that even then, I do take a certain position
        with regard to certain matters
Because, even than--yes, even while lying down on my post-prandial couch
        after dining well; & feeling a bit like a Roman Emperor sipping from
        my tiny glasses of creme-de-menthe liqueur,
& Smoking my customary after-dinner cigar

I'm prone to realize that actually, come to think of it,
I'm really quite fond of seeing panty-lines that show through a woman's
        jeans or dress or skirt!

4.

They're nice, I think--they're even a bit like a little Invitation to Visual Intimacy
        on the wearer's part, I sometimes fancifully think
(Even if the imagined invitation is often, I also realize, inadvertent--
        yes alas, far too often inadvertent);
& Also they suggest to me, in a vaguely philosophical, yet esthetically
        highly pleasing way
That the lady wearing those panties, perhaps isn't shy about revealing various
        significant and often weighty essences
That go deeper than mere glossing over surfaces

As is recommended by--among other leading connoisseurs of the good things
        of this world--that great writer Bertolt Brecht
Who wanted, quite deliberately, the architecture underlying the structure
        of all his poems & plays, to show.

5.

--& So, with respect to the great mystery, to many men (including me) of the World of
        the Female body, & The World of Female & even Feminine things generally

I must say, that I rather appreciate it, when a lady not only lets her panty-lines show
But, in fact, makes sure that they do

--Thus supplying me, via that delightful route, too,
With some further fresh insight into the World, by adding to my understanding
Of how, on this our tiny, ever-shrinking planet, at least two of its major, far-flung
        global phenomena, are somehow drawn firmly all together.

6.

--Which is something that always interests me, speaking of course purely
        from an intellectual point of view;
& Besides that, I must confess also (speaking purely from one
        admittedly intensely male point of view),

It's also something which--whether after dinner or not--
(Together with the random or better yet planned appearance of an
        occasional bra-strap)

Can really give me a great big case of The Hots!

'Of Panty-Lines That Show' is from a manuscript-in-progress entitled OF:  .
It was first published in New York Quarterly © Michael Benedikt l992.
This Webversion © Michael Benedikt l999.  

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