And, like Dearest, Dearest Vivienne, I can offer you no transition to this imaginary letter written to an imaginary person from an imaginary person, which was inspired by Martha's letter to Leopold Bloom a/k/a Henry Flower Esq. I can offer you only the video below -- which is Liz Phair performing the fabulous “Flower” live. Unlike most of her live performances, however, this one is actually quite good. There’s even an extra verse at the end!

Also, Reader: Zelda would like to apologize for the nastiness (hers as well as Liz Phair’s) in the letter below but would also like to blame it on James Joyce.

the masochist says hit me and the sadist says no

naughty you no massaging your silly thinskin your babyfine headhair your naughtynaughty slapsore cock pam grier from a cheap frame watching us fuck and my fingers splaying and pressing your headboard (moving to livingroom) pam grier from a cheap frame watching us fuck and your cock being fucked on the sofa you like to be fucked your cock to be smacked and pulled I have noticed your eyes railroading me with want (with your hair I am making saltwater taffy) I wait for the want to escape your lips for naughtyyou to say --

Vivienne's life is a disaster.

I mean, a Courtney-Love-at-five-a.m. disaster.  A late-Judy-Garland-attempting-to-film-Valley-of-the-Dolls disaster.  A Liza-Minelli-at-any-point disaster.  Together?  Vivienne does not have a whit of it.  And so, Vivienne is not quite sure why she has taken this, this very moment, this Judy-Garland-in-tragic-sunglasses moment, to quit smoking.

Careful Readers may be saying to themselves: Quit smoking?  I thought Vivienne already quit smoking.  I thought that happened years ago. Yes, Careful Readers, you are correct.  Vivienne did quit smoking, and it did happen years ago.  But Vivienne took up smoking again.  And here Vivienne makes a sad admission: Vivienne's journey back down Nicotine Way started because of a man (actually, in an attempt to talk to a man in an unguarded smokehazed moment, during which said man confessed his homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to date him anyway) and continued because of a man (a man who, in Ms. Big Edie Bouvier-Beales' words, was so warm on the telephone but so cold in person) (whose behavior also hinted at homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to semi-date him anyway, which brings to mind a pattern ...).  And so, in order to liberate herself of Said Men, Vivienne is going to quit smoking.

Which leads Vivienne to think of her other additions: besides her addiction to dating and semi-dating men with homosexual tendencies, there is her addition to Diet Coke.  Smoking is bad.  Yes.  This, Vivienne can clearly see.  Diet Coke?  Nothing can convince her.  Her doctor tells her to stop drinking Diet Coke because it is eating her bones.  Vivienne is so exhausted by this news that she can do nothing but drink a Diet Coke.  Vivienne watches footage of an egg dropped in Diet Coke.  Vivienne watches as its shell dissolves.  Vivienne thinks, how refreshing would a cold Diet Coke be right now? Vivienne's teeth fall out because she drinks so much Diet Coke.  Vivienne thinks, perhaps I could freeze Diet Coke in a dental mold?

And now, I provide you with no clear transition to tonight's Ulysses assignment, inspired by Chapter 5, in which Mr. Bloom wanders around, tears up a letter, thinks about sluts, and witnesses an odd version of mass in which the Eucharist seems to come before the Gospel (perhaps this is just his perception, though): an imagine letter from an imaginary person.   Who is, hopefully, happily drinking a Diet Coke, smoking a Camel, and just acting on his homosexual tendencies fergod'ssake like he should've done instead of all that damned repression.

Dearest Y.,

As for the fish I am not sure.  Perhaps when feeding the tank left open, perhaps flipped themselves outwards.  Somewhere I read of their teeth though not sure this is a true thing.  Have you left the flowers where they were or are they elsewhere aplantered?  Last night I could swear bright as day.  The moon or something.  Six cents a sheet, the copies are, and the library overrun with moths.  Ate the verbs out and all of the Rs in the Oxford.  Crying shame, hidden in that dress in the corner, with the stains on the glovetips and seed pearls rolling.  Perhaps Sunday?  Or the hot rolls and the coffee burnt, heating element eternal lit, red eye in the night.  Lit his smoke on it and caught the hair on fire, poor guy.  Bugger he or should've been.  Or would've wished to.  Pour out the last of the glasses and call a night to it, will you?  Yes then.  Yes.

Regards.

FS

I should leave it at that, but we all know that I won't. So, on the drive home at 1:00AM, I made a little list. Some items on this list are reflective of myself and some are just because....but there's 10 total.

1. Rockstars are hard to take pictures of. They are always jumping around and banging their heads. Truly harder to photograph than my children. Exhibit A....

2. If you wear heals to a Poison concert and spend 4 hours "Unskinny Bopping" your toes will go numb, even if they are a cork wedge (which are suppose to be more comfortable, that's a filthy lie). I still haven't regained feeling in the toes on my right foot, seriously, but walk just fine in case you are concerned. And as a side note, probably a good thing my husband didn't attend this concert with us, because I would have embarrassed him "Unskinny Bopping" like I was 16 again.

3. Sebastian Bach is not the hottie I remember from 1989, what a disappointment. Almost as disappointing as when I figured Aqua Net wasn't the miracle product for my hair. "Look What the Cat Dragged In" in Exhibit B....

4. I have gone through 33 years of life and never-ever heard of a band called Dokken. Call me sheltered.

5. Does anyone know where I can find a pair of pants like these? They are necessary to my wardrobe. How cool are black velvet pants with studded silver crosses down the side? Exhibit C....

6. Sebastian Bach also spits on his audience as well as drop kicks water bottles. 5th Street can unfortunately attest to this one, so bummed I didn't get a picture, I was too busy crawling across the couple beside me to avoid saliva.

7. I still know every single word of "Every Rose has Its Thorn." One of my top 10 favorite songs of all time (don't make fun). I sang it like I was 15 and had just broken up with the high school love of my life.

8.Bret Michaels shaves his armpits. Why, I'm not sure. But, bet you didn't get that tidbit of information on Rock of Love, season 1 or 2. Exhibit D...

9. I really didn't need my earplugs after all.

10. CC Deville is the coolest, coolest, coolest. Exhibit E....

His persona is larger than life and he's a showman in the true essence of the word. I loved seeing him perform live.

But, the way he fills a room with humility and authenticity is truly inspiring. Thanks for the opportunity CC.

5th Street has a similar list over at his place. Check it out!

Some lists are merely lists. Others are sacred and priceless, like this one.  Welcome to the next installment of The 5, and this one is quite near and dear to our hearts.  We will examine the sensitive side of rock, the softer part of every rocker, the part of every bad boy that only his wild woman gets to see: the Power Ballad.  

Having to narrow it down to only 5 selections is like trying to pick your favorite appendage.  You love them all for different reasons.  But just like you sometimes have to cut off one of your limbs, so too did I have to cut away some that just did not make the...cut.  Sorry.  So honorable mentions go to: Scorpions, Wind of Change (political power ballad), Tesla, Love Song ("you'll be ok, baby" power ballad),Def Leppard,  Love Bites ("lovin' you is a painful thing" power ballad), and Whitesnake,  Is This Love ("what is this crazy thing I'm feeling" power ballad).  

So here, with an acoustic build up and electric finish, is the list, in descending order.

5.  Poison, Every Rose Has its Thorn:  a forlorn tale of love gone sour.  Bret Michaels fills us in on how he and his girl have drifted apart, and CC Deville drives the nail deeper into his heart with his piercing solo.  I wish I could have told Bret back in 1988 "Don't worry, man. In about 20 years you'll have your own tv show and 20 skanks to keep you company and make you feel better".

4.  Heaven, Warrant: ah, the bittersweet memories of days gone by. Jani Lane takes a stroll down memory...lane (dang it, I did it again) and knows it will all be ok as long as he has his girl.  Quite the clever double meaning, as this can also be interpreted as a love letter to the fans. But then, any band that would later pen a song called "Uncle Tom's Cabin" definitely had some brains.

3.  Skid Row, I Remember You: even when you're a sleazy, fight picking group of rambunctious hoodlums, you still have that one girl that you still think about, especially when it's raining.  Sebastian Bach and company reminisce about that girl that got away, which my world weary, tattered and torn 8th grade heart could definitely relate too.  Just one question: if the chorus says "remember yesterday, walking hand in hand, love letters in the sand, I remember you", why does the girl not remember? If it was just yesterday, does she have some sort of short term memory problem? Much like an onion, every time you peel away a layer of this song, another layer is exposed. 

2.  Bon Jovi, Wanted Dead or Alive: the ultimate "life on the road" song.  The rocker as gunslinger motif adequately captures life as a late 80's musician (even if it was imagined by Ratt in "Wanted Man" first).  I'm not quite sure what crimes he is wanted for (too much aquanet usage? flying in concert without a permit?) but I'm glad he risked his life in order bring us the rock.  All I know is that is impossible not to throw your fist in the air when you hear the line "I've seen a million faces, and I've rocked them". 

1. Motley Crue, Home Sweet Home: The power ballad to end all power ballads. Sensitive piano intro and outro; soaring chorus, epic guitar solo. All the parts are there.  And everyone gets tired of being away from home. Especially after covering your body with tattoos, injecting heroin, and shouting at the devil, like the boys from the Crue (sorry, my keyboard is fresh out of umlauts).  This is 100%, Grade A, Pure Power Balladry.  Nothing but the best.

Zelda knows, Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader, that she must write a few more poems to reach her goal of 30 FaOuLiPoWriMo [Fashionable OuLiPo Writing Month of Fashion] poems. Zelda has been rather tired lately because of lack of nutrients, as she has not gone grocery shopping in a while and is forced to scavenge her pantry for forgotten packets of Raman Noodles and dusty boxes of instant pudding.

So until Zelda goes grocery shopping and restores the nutrients in her body, Zelda must leave you, Most Fashionable Reader, to consider this:

Consider Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Departed. Consider his perpetually furrowed brow. Consider his propensity toward violence. Consider his height and his scowl. Consider the curve of his shoulders. Consider that he orders cranberry juice at a bar, which suggests an attempt to refrain from drinking alcohol, which suggests a previous unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Consider that he has identity issues. Consider that he has many issues, period, but consider that he is still more mature than any man his age that this speaker has ever met. Consider that, after verbally sparring with his appointed psychiatrist, he asks her if she'd like to join him for a cup of coffee. Consider that she says yes. Consider that this speaker would say yes to a cup of coffee with Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Departed, too. Consider the slim chance of happiness for this most fashionable speaker since the only man in the whole world she feels she can love is a fictional creation, one who doesn't even make it to the end of the movie. Consider this, Dear Reader. Consider this.

Now, encounters with Ultimate Nemeses are bad enough, especially when said Ultimate Nemesis resembles The Nothing much more than any other human being, animal, plant, rock, or anything composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons known to exist upon the planet. Encounters with Ultimate Nemeses should occur only when one is dressed as fabulously as Bette Davis in her early career and has had enough cocktails to be spontaneously witty. Encounters with Ultimate Nemeses should never, ever, never occur when one has not done one's hair. Encounters with Ultimate Nemeses should never, ever, never, EVER occur when accompanied by Office Machine malfunctions which require one to be viewed in profile (which is really not the way that Vivienne wishes to be viewed, due mostly to her Roman nose, which has, more than once, been cleverly described as "yeah, ROAMIN' AROUND YOUR FACE!"), and when the aforementioned profile view allows the Ultimate Nemesis a clear view of a Very Serious Blemish. I'm talking, the kind of Very Serious Blemish that might appear just before one's prom. I'm talking, the kind of Very Serious Blemish that invariably appeared right on the tip of your nose on the morning of school picture day, that no amount of toothpaste would dry, that no amount of carefully applying your mother's industrial strength under-eye concealer would cover. THAT kind of Very Serious Blemish.

Nonetheless, Vivienne has Sucked It Up, and her encounter with the Ultimate Nemesis has inspired her. See, when Vivienne encounters the Ultimate Nemesis, she tends to think of fire-breathing hell beasts, and all kinds of terrifying mythological monsters whose sole purpose is to suck the souls from well-meaning human beings. Which got her to thinking about the chimera, which got her to writing one. The base text of this chimera comes from I Can Read About Weather, a very informative textbook on just the same subject published by Troll Press in 1975. The nouns come from the aforementioned Two Women, so that the I may receive a mystical visitation from the spitfire fabulousness that is Sophia Loren. The verbs come from Effective Small Group Communication, Second Edition, an instructive text that my Ultimate Nemesis has much need of reading. The adjectives come from Sonya Fitzpatrick's, THE PET PSYCHIC's, master oeuvre, Cat Talk: The Secrets of Communicating with Your Cat, whose gentle words will probably lull me to sleep tonight.

I Emerge, Divide Up the Cloth Wrappings

When you laugh at the face, do you smile
out of the squall to see what kind of road

it's responding to give? Do you tell
the suitcases and pantomime about

the napkins? Some towns watch acutely.
Some sums like calming and daunting.

And on some heads, enlightened, lost
shoes of stockings try out the provisions.

All of these take different kinds
of parcels. The war, all around

you, demonstrates part of the stones,
too. So when you accomplish in

and when you notice out, you are ignoring
a case of the Rome. There continues

some kind of Ciociara in pregnant cloaks
of the grass. Somewhere, distances insult

sunbathing. Somewhere else, a soul is raging.
People groan and the countryside ought

to knock the city. What will be
the dweller? What will expect

the signs? What releases beloved
kinds of frankness?

Zelda's Benevolent Yet Somewhat Annoying Friend showed no pity for Our Dearest, Most Fashionable Zelda. "You're not going to die any time soon, Zelda," he said. "And you're not going to die alone."

"Yes I ammmmmmm," Zelda wailed. "I am going to die alooooooooooooone."

"Get it together, Zelda," the Benevolently Annoying Friend said. "You're not fun to be around when you're like this."

"Fun?!" Zelda roared with all the Furious Rage she could, in her pathetic state, muster. "You call this film of tragedy and great sorrow FUN?! ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS WATCH THAT WILL FERRELL COMEDY! THAT ONE ABOUT BASKETBALL! BUT! NO! YOU TALKED ME INTO THE FREAKING BUCKET LIST! HOLY CHRIST I NEED A CIGARETTE!"

So Zelda furiously drove back to her apartment, alone. Whilst driving, she violently smoked cigarette after cigarette, alone. She stomped up her flight of stairs, alone. She brushed her teeth so hard that her gums bled, alone. She furiously plumped her highly fashionable pillow, alone, and Zelda finally drifted off into a Sleep Full of Rage and Fury and Sorrow. Alone.

Sometimes, Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader, only eighties music will suffice. Only eighties music can express the loneliness and the angst one Zelda felt while curled up in a fetal position on a hardwood floor. And this is why, Most Fashionable Reader, Zelda has provided for you the video below, in all its acid washed hair sprayed white sneakered jean jacketed sweetly innocent bubblegum smacking glory. Hearts are good for souvenirs, Dear Reader. Hearts are good for souvenirs.

Oh yeah! The poem!

For this FaOuLiPoWriMoFa [Fashionable OuLiPo Writing Month of Fashion] poem, Zelda has blended the Fashionable OuLiPo methods of curtailing and interference. Zelda's source text was a section of a quiz found in Delivered from Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey.

Self Assessment

Are you concerned that you drink too much when you’re alone?

Do you smoke more cigarettes now that you’re single?

When by yourself, do you resent yourself?

Do you enjoy being alone in basements?

Do you waste vast quantities of time roaming around by yourself?

Do you smile when talking to yourself in hopes that it will be a sufficient contribution?

Since you’ve become single, have you made the mistake of dating?

Has the quality of your sex life declined due to internal emotional conflict?

Is what you’re looking forward to doing a solitary act?

Do you find that you have trouble sustaining attention when you make love to yourself?

Do you have trouble lingering when you make love to yourself?

Do you have recurring dreams in which you’re by yourself?

Do you carry anger and frustration within you?

When alone, do you feel a great deal of shame?

When you’re alone, do you yearn to be so much more?

And so she gives you a Fashionable Pet Shops Boys AbFab Mix of Fashion:

And so she lets you in on one of the Most Fashionable Revelations of The Evening, which is that PATSY IS FABULOUS with this Sponge Osmosity created from AbFab clips.  Enjoy, and remember, kids: BE FASHIONABLE AS OTHERS SHALL BE FASHIONABLE UNTO YOU.

Lacroix, darling.  Lacroix.

Sweetie Darling The Stairwell

California lovely the roof off lovely
over it the road the road lovely

there used to be here your language
watch you foul you language I am

thin a bee is it where is it find it
we need more don't leave right well

then a bee a bee is it a small hello
cut it off he's very nice cut it off I have

to get out of here darling Mummy's here
sweetheart I'm going to call the filth

the pigs just drink it sweetie no fabulous
no fantastic no I like this one no this

one is the one this one here what is this
sweetie we tried didn't we we didn't want is this

For the poem below, I have used the OuLiPo exercise of noun implantation. I have taken One Stab’s last words in Legends of the Fall (for those Most Unfashionable Readers who do not know One Stab, he is the narrator of the Most Fashionable Movie, Legends of the Fall) and extracted the nouns. I have replaced those nouns with nouns from “The Idea of Order in Key West” by Wallace Stevens.

Legend

That motion we buried. The rage,
we dumped. The wind in a deep shadow
in the upper horizon, I remember.
When he was a sound, I thought summer
would never live to be an old song.
I was wrong about that. I was wrong
about many demarcations. It was those
who loved him most who died young.
He was the night they broke
themselves against, however much
he tried to protect them.
But he had his spirit and a long body,
and he saw his voices grow and raise
their own songs. Summer died in the sea
of the popping coral. He was last seen
in the north boats, hunting. His speech
is unmarked, but it does not matter.
He had always lived in the sky, anyway,
somewhere between this atmosphere
and the other. It was a good distance.

Zelda does not know whether or not to believe these people. Zelda is glad they agree with her, but sometimes she gets a prickly feeling that the others are attempting to appease her, just as nurses would try to appease raving lunatics at an asylum by saying things like "Of course the sky is grass and the ground is made of clouds NOW OPEN WIDE AND TAKE YOUR MEDS!" or "Yes, the sofa is a living breathing beast that runs around the television at night NOW OPEN WIDE AND TAKE YOUR MEDS GODDAMMIT!" But still. But still.

Which leads us into tonight's OuLiPo exercise. I decided to use Fashionable Poem Prompt / Poem Prompt of Fashion 8 -- found in my previous entry. I took Alison Townsend's poem entitled "The Habit of Its Fit," which is a poem about a wedding band -- or, rather, the absence of a wedding band -- and rearranged its lines. Alison Townsend's poem can be found by clicking here.

The Habit of Its Fit

But I think it takes the body a long time,
still accommodating the shape of the wide
absence becomes presence
who has never been touched by a man,
girded by an iron ring but still growing.

When the fit cinched me, like a maple I saw,
the way I once arranged it around
to forget sixteen years with another,
reminding me how stubbornly wedded I am --

Insistent as the thing itself,
one of my friends says, Buy yourself a new ring
of dust and light, the habit of its fit
assumes alone, lying down in bed on spring nights
like the gravitation field of a new planet,

one of your own. She promises a friendship band,
or an invisible cushion of air,
ever since I took off my wedding ring,
but with the knowledge of a woman intent
to learn solitude and the shape of the soul
spiraling around my finger like bands
that are half sea and half forest --

Something floats around my finger,
and I arrange my life around emptiness,
yours, struggling to fit even
in a white cotton nightgown like a girl

with my birthstone, like those we traded as girls
memory makes room for despite me.
My other fingers splay slightly aside,
silver band engraved with leaves,
on loneliness -- that ghost ring --

For tonight’s Poem of Fashionable OuLiPo Fashion, Zelda has chosen to work with an Invisible Library. Zelda has created an Invisible Library of books that have been Number One on the New York Times Bestseller list since the inception of the list. The poem below has been constructed using titles taken from aforementioned list (click here for a .PDF file of list).

If you partake in the Invisible Library exercise, Dearest Vivienne, Zelda politely requests that, if at all possible, you include Doctor Zhivago in your poem. Zelda regrets that she discovered that Doctor Zhivago was on the NYT Best Seller List after she had finished writing her poem.

*I know, I know, Dear Reader: smoking is quite unhealthy. But since Zelda no longer drinks the Devil’s Brew, since Zelda has been sober for over two years now, please allow her this one vice for now, Dear Reader. For now.

The Green Years

[for Zelda were spent innocently lusting after Jordan Catalano.]

Zelda realizes she needs to get organized.

She is not organized tonight, however. And since she is not organized, she is forced to present you, Dearest, Most Fashionable Reader, with a pair of Very Bad Poems. I have followed Dearest Vivienne's lead from yesterday (though not nearly as fashionably as Viv did) by looking at two sonnets the way Raymond Queneau suggests; he believed that the "substance of each sonnet lay in its rhymed line-endings."

So. Below are two poems created by utilizing the end words/phrases from two sonnets by Michael Field. Michael Field was the pen name for two women -- an aunt, Katherine Bradley, and her niece, Edith Cooper. A bit like Abigail Van Buren, one may say. Or, perhaps, more like the VC Andrews estate, as Bradley and Cooper were purported to be lovers.

[pomes have gone to the used bookstore to buy Flowers in the Attic and other VC Andrews classics. . . ]

Zelda can think of no logical reason for this breakdown. Zelda is not bitter. Zelda does not feel sorry for herself. Zelda is not exceedingly depressed. Since she has broken up with her husband, Zelda has had many conversations with many people about many, many weddings, and Zelda has had no breakdowns as a result of said conversations. Zelda, in fact, wishes all of these new and soon-to-be husbands and wives great happiness for the duration of their lives, and Zelda is being completely sincere when she says this.

Zelda is quite perplexed. Zelda does not understand these things called feelings. Zelda wishes they would go away, for she cannot identify them.

Onward!

For this FaOulipoWriMoFa entry, Zelda has created her own exercise and used the first nine lines of Adelaide Anne Proctor's “A Legend of Provence” as her core text (Zelda had grand visions of using the 336-line poem in its entirety as her core text, but even if she hadn’t had her Exceedingly Unfashionable Breakdown, she doubts she could have done this, but she shall use her Exceedingly Unfashionable Breakdown as an excuse nonetheless). She has blended random lines from Charles Bukowski’s “lack of almost everything” and “no. 6” with the first nine lines of Procter’s poem. She has changed verb tenses when necessary.

Lack of a Legend

[is gone to the races, betches!]

I love weekends.
Grey's Anatomy was amazing last night. Nothing better than Callie and Hahn... making out. BUT DEREK AND MEREDITHHH! :D
I miss Gossip Girl. (But, it starts airing on CTV next friday, since they were late on getting the new episodes when they came out I guess... ahaha but that's okay, I enjoy reruns.)
I also love that I will be getting new glasses this week!

I don't love that it's the two year anniversary since my Uncle's death this coming thursday. :/ It's going to be a really hard day.

P.S. I'm listening to Poison, and I don't know why. Help. Me. Please.

Since Episode 407 of Project Runway dealt with high school students, the following Fashionable Poem Prompt / Poem Prompt of Fashion was inspired by the emotions one experienced while in high school. For this poet, there were two: one being love, and the other being hate. And since love, that day-glo cotton candy field in which unicorns and kittens pranced and frolicked, so often devolved into the nuclear winter landscape smeared with ash and char that is better known as hate, "love" and "hate" play a very important role in the following Fashionable Poem Prompt / Poem Prompt of Fashion. We decided to appropriate the angsty emo-girl that Vivienne used in an earlier Fashionable Post / Post of Fashion into this prompt's Graphic of Fashion because, really: doesn't she say it all?

Prompt Seven — “Love + Hate = Angst of the Poet,” inspired by Episode 407 of Project Runway, in which the designers were teamed up with high school girls and their mothers and told to design the teenagers' prom dresses while following instructions from the teenagers and warnings from their mothers.

The poet will construct a poem the length of her choosing. Each poem, however, must begin with a noun, verb, or phrase of love and end with a noun, verb, or phrase of hate. Enjambment is encouraged. The Hyacinth Girls have fashionably provided for you, Dear Reader, a PDF file containing seventy-five (75) nouns, verbs, and phrases of love and seventy-five (75) nouns, verbs, and phrases of hate. To view this PDF file, click here, or click on the image to the left.

Most Fashionable Reader! This is my last post for NaPoWriMoFa (National Poetry Writing Month of Fashion)! There will be tears after this. Trust me. Whatever shall I do now? What will I do without my late night calls to Our Most Fashionable Vivienne, which always began with “O MY GOD I HAVEN’T FINISHED MY POEM YET THERE IS NO WAY I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS POEM”?

But there will be things to do. There will be an apartment to clean. There will be poems to revise at a much more leisurely pace. There will be books of poetry to read. There will be the brand new pool behind the brand new vacation home behind my apartment to sneak into at night. There will be Slash: The Autobiography to read. There will be new episodes of House to watch. There will be a shore and an ocean to enjoy in person. There will be new blogs posted by Brenda Dickson to read. And there will, at long, long last, be laughter! Yes, there will be laughter.

What there will be less of. There will be many less cartons of cigarettes purchased. There will be many less bowls of Honey Oat Medley, the poor woman’s Honey Bunches of Oats, consumed while in front of the computer at 11.30 PM. There will be less glasses-wearing pony-tailing mornings. There will be less eyestrain.

But there will still be late nights in front of the computer.

But. Most importantly: THERE WILL STILL BE THE HYACINTH GIRLS! Yes! As Vivienne so fashionably mentioned below, the Hyacinth Girls shall return! We will take a brief sabbatical, of course, to regroup and make ourselves fashionable again. But there is no fashion without the Hyacinth Girls! There is no Zelda without Vivienne! My Dearest, Most Fashionable Vivienne! My Dearest, Most Fashionable Vivienne who has so selflessly pulled me through this month! My Dearest, Most Fashionable Vivienne who has so selflessly pulled me through many, many, many months before this month! And this is for you, Vivienne:

It is the Most Fashionable and Most Famous Blue Heart Diamond. It is over 30 carats. I shall somehow persuade someone at the Smithsonian, where it is currently displayed, to let me have it, and I shall have the Most Fashionable of All Fashionable Diamond Heart Necklaces made for you. Thank you, Vivienne. Thank you.

And now. The last poem of the NaPoWriMoFa (National Poetry Writing Month of Fashion) of 2008:

Consequence

Whenever I think of you, I remember all
the people in this world who never kept me
warm. I don’t mince words; they’re all
I have, my gestures being
broken, unsuccessful. Nothing. Again: nothing
parceled out from nothing, fear from a handful
of dust, something gorgeous for the camera’s

flash. A knock on the door, a game of chess
I’m forbidden to see, wholesome goodness
portioned out like poker chips. O
the sounds crackling from beneath
the stone! O you who were with me,
your heart a tangible matter of infinite hope!
The mute board you carried on your back,

waiting for intimate revelations that were
forgotten by first snow. I was deeply saddened.
Your secret griefs changed me,
my confidence turning
to wildness, a perpetual state of unknowing,
a hostile levity of tongue pressing against
the pills I took. The wildness I could never rein.

Now, Bret Michaels does have the ability to play the guitar. He can play it just as well as your Unspeakably Cool Cousin plays it outside on the porch when he visits during the holidays after his parents and your parents and all of the other grown-ups have gone to bed, and your Unspeakably Cool Cousin plays and talks about Jimmy Page, whom you secretly despise, but you respond to your cousin's blatherings about Jimmy Page the same way you respond to blatherings on Ernest Hemingway (whom you also secretly despise), and that is by saying, "Yes, [insert man name here] is a man who worked extremely hard on his craft, and no one can deny him that," and you are happy with your statement, for it is neither negative nor positive, so you do not feel as if you're lying and pretending to be someone other than yourself, but -- and this is purely hypothetical -- if you were yearning to be someone other than yourself, you'd be yearning to be someone one tenth of one percent as cool as your Unspeakably Cool Cousin, because, even though both of you turn thirty this year, and now that your clothing screams FASHION! and your wit is as sharp as a brand-new switchblade and you have read every single thing Dave Eggers has ever thought of writing and can discuss it for great lengths of time with great enthusiasm, you still feel like Super Dork of the Universe when beside your Unspeakably Cool Cousin, who has now moved from talking about Jimmy Page to talking about the prison fight that almost kept him from being released last week, and you listen with wondrously rapt attention because, even though you are fully aware that you will never be able to touch the coolness that is your Unspeakably Cool Cousin, you enjoy being given the opportunity to look right into the Glorious Face of Great Coolness once or twice a year because it is so much better than never being able to be in its presence at all.

Whew! That was exhausting! Back to Bret Michaels. So I cannot defend the hottness factor of Bret Michaels by speaking of his musical talent. I can, however, defend Mr. Michaels's hottness by saying that, even though he may not be king of the guitar, he is most, most certainly the King of Fashion. Our Lady of the Most Fashionably Fashionable Fashion Brenda Dickson tells us: Fashion is something that is acquired by looking at a lot of different fashions. Mr. Michaels takes this wondrous quote and makes it his own, which is this: Fashion is something that is acquired by trying out a lot of different fashions. Some fashions are, understandably, a lot more fashionable than others. See the Metamorphosis of Bret Michaels's Fashion below. Note the photos in which Mr. Michaels bears an uncanny resemblance to a) a Raw Eddie Murphy and b) Kid Rock (those being examples of Bret's unfashionable moments).

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FASHION
OF THE HOTTNESS THAT IS BRET MICHAELS

Take any of the women's faces pictured here, dear reader (from The Blair Witch Project, The Ring, The Descent, and Event Horizon, respectively), and superimpose her emotion onto my face, and you will have a good idea of what my face has looked like during wakefulness as well as slumber this Terrifyingly Beautiful Month of April.

But please! Do not worry about my state of being, for those of you who know me also know that I tend to lean toward the fashionably (melo)dramatic whenever possible. It's for the sake of the story, dear readers. It's all for the sake of the story. And what a most fabulous story it is, dear readers! What a most fabulous story it is! Once again, I thank Most Fashionable Vivienne for inviting me to take part in this endeavor with her, and I also thank her for believing in my sanity. Thank you, Most Fashionable Vivienne. Thank you.

Though this month has been terrifyingly exhausting at times (and also, at times, just terrifying), it has also been incredibly, incredibly beautiful. There has been no pushing poetry aside for, say, Intervention marathons, America’s Next Top Model marathons, Law and Order: CI marathons, etc., etc. There has been the writing of the poems AND Intervention marathons, America’s Next Top Model marathons, Law and Order: CI marathons, etc., etc. I have found that poetry and television can coexist! O happy day! O happy, happy, fabulously fashionable day!

Serenata

You can’t [read the rest of this poem, betches! it's gone!]

Now, however, the Internet has returned to me. And to prove my fidelity to NaPoWriMo, I shall post today not once, but twice! Here is the first poem, written in the middle of a Rock Concert (sadly, there were no fabulously fashionable top hats or white feathered jackets, so I'm not even sure it could be terms a Rock Concert) in a bar. I've long been fascinated with closed captioning, and spent a good deal of time glancing back and forth from the television to the Rock Concert to the sorority girls who were sitting in a corner with tube tops and look of utter confusion on their faces when someone pulled out a banjo. Here is the result.

Close (Captions)

But also a shame, as I neglected to mention the wondrous dream I had the night before! In which everyone was wearing a tall and lovely black hat like Slash! And do you know what? That was the first dream I have had in months, months, where there was nothing unpleasant, not even this odd eerie feeling that one often experiences in horror movies just as the fog begins to roll in. It was due solely, of course, to the Slash hats. The moral? Slash hats can save the world.

Here is one thing that will not save the world: Brett Michaels bandannas. Today, in the complete exhaustion and collapse which often comes after road trips and public underwear showings, I watched a good deal of the Rock of Love II marathon. I became aware of the fact that this show might bring back the Rock Bandanna, rather than the Slash hat, which made me slightly uneasy. I became aware of the fact that Brett Michaels wears more make-up than I do on a daily basis. I became aware of the fact that I am, nonetheless, attracted to Brett Michaels. I became aware of the fact that it's a very good thing that I'm starting therapy again soon.

A Self-Help Guide to Making It

Eat your greens.