Fashionable Poem Prompt / Poem Prompt of Fashion — Prompt Six

Prompt Six — “Brain Candy,” based on Episode 406 of Project Runway, in which the designers were taken to the Hershey’s flagship store in Times Square and were told that they had five minutes to grab whatever they could as raw materials — from Twizzlers to Hershey’s syrup, from Hershey’s pillows to economy-sized bags of peanut butter cups — to use to create an outfit of fashion.

The poet will construct a poem consisting of fifty (50) lines. Each line must include one (1) of the candies, sweets, or delectable treats* found in the Spreadsheet of Fashion below, which lists ninety (90) fashionably edible sweets (the large version of the Spreadsheet of Fashion can be found by clicking here, or by simply clicking on the image below).

The poet may incorporate the products any way she chooses. For example, the poet could have actual Rolos in a line. Or, to incorporate a Peppermint Pattie into a line of her poem, the poet could include the words “pepper,” “mint,” “pat,” and “tie” in the line.

*yes, I am quite aware that the rhyming here is absolutely horrendous

Non-Poetry Aside of Fashion! / In Defence of Bret’s Hotness

Now, I admit: it’s not as easy to defend the opinion that Bret Michaels is the Hottness as it is to defend Slash’s Hottness. Talent-wise, at least. I mean, I think we all agree that Slash has talent. Not talent like, oh, Shawn Lane had, but — in all honesty — I’d rather have Slash blaring from the speakers of my car rather than Shawn Lane as I’m gnashing my teeth on the angst and general malaise and incredible rage that comes with Being a Poet.

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

Because Viv Is Dedicated. I Mean, DEDICATED.

And to prove it, here’s my second post for the day, to make up for yesterday’s outage-forced-pass.

When I was writing this poem, I thought to myself, as I have occasionally thought to myself whilst writing a poem before, hm. Hm. Hm. This sounds familiar. And as I kept writing the Hms got louder and louder, as the poem began to sound more and more familiar. And then I completed the poem and began to type it out and thought, Oh. That’s it. The ex-boyfriend. Of course. The ex-boyfriend of the plaid shirts and the creamed-corn-tasting breath once, indeed, did write a poem which began with the line “Were I to see you at a rock show,” or something of the like. And I froze, for a moment, thinking, Oh. Oh no. Oh no. And I debated, for a moment, the poem. I thought, perhaps, it would be best not to post it. I thought it might be best not to even type it out. I thought, I can’t take that from him. Can I?

And then I remembered that, though I have none of his possessions, he still, to this day, to this minute, to this second, has in his possession several things he took from me, including two very much beloved CDs and — AND! — a copy of a much-loved book — autographed by the incredibly fabulous and undeniably amazing Mark Doty. Other things he took from me include countless ink pens, hundreds of cigarettes, a hand-crocheted afghan, and a garden gnome I lovingly painted by myself. And my ability to listen to REM’s “You Are the Everything” without curling into a little ball and crying, crying, crying. And my innocence. There was my innocence. There was that. Oh, and my ability to have a successful and meaningful relationship. There was that. Oh, oh, and my general faith in the inherent goodness of mankind and the fact that not every person is out to screw me horribly and leave me in a shell of unspeakable numbness that lasts for months, if not years. There was that, too. Wait. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. The poem.

Were I to Meet You at a Rock Show

I’d still have angst I should’ve gotten rid of at 18.

Just you try to hold me down. Come on, try to shut me up.

My dearest, most fashionable reader: the intensity of NaPoWriMoFa (National Poetry Writing Month of Fashion) has caught me deep within its clutches. I have been sweating profusely at night for over a week — embarrassingly profusely, humiliatingly profusely. I can no longer trust myself or my emotions. I feel as if I am lost within the caverns of my own brain with gaping abysses on either side. Yes, dearest reader, being immersed in the process of poetry twenty-four hours a day for almost a month has taken its toll.

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!]

Because There Are Hard Facts You Need to Learn

And I am the one who will school you in them. To wit: dear readers, I am about to rock your world. I am about to rock it so it will never be able to be stable again. I am about to share with you, dear readers, the most disturbing fact I have learned in a very long time. To wit:

Whilst looking for the perfect photograph of Brett Michaels in a feathered jacket last night, I stumbled across this article, which reveals that a fashionably feather-clad Michaels suffers from Type I diabetes, and was, in fact, diagnosed with this disease at the tender age of six (much like Stacy, the fair and sassy New York heroine of The Baby Sitters’ Club, who I worshipped as an adolescent, as I was much more of a shy and retiring Mary Ann, though without Logan, the super-hawt boyfriend with the sweet Southern accent, and with a smelly cat who tended to treat my arm as a scratching post instead, though we need not go into that now). Why, friends, is this so disturbing? Because this means that Brett Michaels cannot drink. Or, that is Brett Michaels is drinking, he has to constantly monitor his glucose levels so as to not fall into a diabetic coma. And because this means that, through Rock of Love, Brett Michaels must be … sober. Stone. Cold. SOBER. He decided to wear those bandannas … SOBER. He thought that white feathered jacket was, in fact, awesome … SOBER. He has dealt with two seasons of hysterical strippers whose mammas did not teach them how to sit like ladies … SOBER.

Think about it. Think deep and hard about what that means.

And now, an illness poem. O, the shame.

Friday A Bed

Can be a nice change.

Because All of Those Commercials That Warned About How Alcohol Leads You to Bad Decisions Were Actually Right After All

To which Vivienne’s last post certainly attests. Please forgive me, dear readers. There was a celebration, and I found myself, suddenly, realizing that there is also NaPoWriMo, and I was just tens of minutes away from the end of the day. Alas! Alas. I feel a bit as if I’ve shown my underwear on the Internet. Though, had I shown my underwear on the Internets, we would have no more readers, and Zelda might never forgive me. This, at least, was funny.

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.