LIP SERVICE

Copyright. LIP SERVICE 12/31/09

“Read my lips” said the President Bush (the good one). “No more taxes”. It was a catchy slogan even it meant very little. His supporters of course all paid lip service to it. It always got a good laugh at the convention, like “Where’s the beef?” Don’t give me any of your lip, a dad might say to a sassy child. The easy girl in UNDER MILK WOOD sells her lips for a penny. Poor tragic Marie Antoinette, dead at 38, was not a real beauty having inherited the Hapsburg upper lip making her mouth rather small and her chin rather large. One reads in novels of people staring at his or lips. Lips, hands, feet are often focuses of lustful attention. We talk of the lip of the crater of a volcano as if it were a woman. Lips feature in fashion magazines, often deep red accompanied by dark exotic thick shiny hair. Lucky Angelina Jolie or Sophia Loren or Julia Roberts all of whom sell their talent and their luscious lips. Even Mick Jagger who’s still around, has huge lips. Joan Rivers quipped they could give Rhode Island a hickey. Othello was put down by the appellation Thick Lips.But lips in proportion are grand I think and invite kisses sweeter than wine.