Victorian bowels

A slavish adherence to the bowels used to bug
Victorian and other old-school gentlemen of letters
like a pox. I distinctly recall three-to-five separate rants.
Now maybe those were just weird dudes (don't recall
hearing anything from the ladies) but the fact it was
considered fit to publish makes me think it must've
struck some public chord, too. Not only across
the water! 

Pretty sure either Twain or Poe weighed in.
Fired a shot across the bowel for America
and freedom, or for irascible curmudgeonliness
or grotesquerie, perversity and a family nerve
ailment, depending. You know, I think it was
Twain.

Anyway, what the hell was the deal? It seemed 
almost the objection of a distempered rationalist
elevating mind and reason above all, yet simply 
could not deal with this shit! Strange, but then 
writers as a whole get some funny ideas.

And isn't that partly why we read them
on the toilet? Me, I just savor whatever irony's
in me, enjoy the void and flush. 

I guess to be fair, the available facilities back then
were a tad more rough. Could conceivably put
a crimp in the natural process and its perceived

good. 

Well if so, I don't know that anybody covered 
themselves in glory for future generations with 
a left-field moan like that, but I credit them all 
for an admirable lack of inhibition. If one cannot 
embrace one's nature, at least one should not 

hide one's indignant defiance!