And we’ll steal the light of the world!

It is late, late, late. It is very, very late, and the Very Bad Band across the street is playing a Beatles song, and somehow I find that fitting.

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 I’m just stupid! I’m so awful!

Here it is, Most Fashionable Reader: the penultimate NaPoWriMoFa (National Poetry Writing Month of Fashion) poem! [I missed a day, and after this post, I am posting the final NaPoWriMoFa poem] And it is a Poem of Fashion! Not a Fashionable Poem, mind you. But — quite literally — a Poem of Fashion. It is inspired by none other than Our First Lady of Fashion / Our Most Fashionable First Lady, Brenda Dickson. Whom you can see in the video below. And, Most Fashionable Reader, you absolutely must must must watch the video below. And when you watch the video below, you will hear many of the lines in the poem below. And when you watch the video below, you will be complete. You will be fashionable.

And that is all for this poemlogue, for Brenda Dickson is really all you need.

One more thing! I must confess that I have appropriated Most Fashionable Vivienne’s Most Fashionable Word “Char” in this poem. But it is used quite unfashionably.

It sounds pretty bad, but you can get used to it, and once you acquire a taste for it, you won’t want anything else.

Start with a clean face, a steel face, a face
so still the breeze won’t know it’s coming.

This is the best advice I could give any woman.
This will be the answer to all your problems.

You’ll need lips, sealed lips, blood
tinted lips, lips glossed with sheered magenta.

They’re used in movies, and they work
well with your blank slate of face. Your eyes

should be traced with flecks of your heart’s
char, rimmed with hallowed ash, kohled

with the cold calm of the righteously wicked.
It may sound commercial, but it makes you

better. It’s a great look.
It’s really all you need when you want.

Because Breaking Up Is Hard to Do …

… we, being Zelda and myself, refuse to do it.  We will not leave you, blog!  We will not leave you, blog readers!  We will not leave each other, being hyacinth girl BFF/BFF (Best Fashion Friends/Best Friends of Fashion) Forever!  There will, of course, be a necessary break.  There will, of course, be my oversleeping tomorrow, and rushing around so due to the oversleeping that I forget it is May first.  There will be my writing the letter “R” on my hand to remind myself to not only pay the rent but to begin the morning by saying “Rabbit Rabbit” and not “Damn cat!  Get off of my face!” for good luck.  There will be the moment when I realize in an obscene foam of panic that I have not yet written a poem for the day, and there will be my flipping through various cable channels or the pages of Us Weekly to find some kind of angst for inspiration.  There will be the moment when I realize it is May, May, and NaPoWriMo is over, and there is no poem, and there will be dancing, though it will be dancing laced with the bitter taste of disappointment and let-down.  But there will be more Hyacinth Girls to come.  O, and there will be fashion, and there will be rock bandannas, and all will be heart-shaped and diamond-encrusted.

Before posting this poem, one of two poems for the evening, I must give a shout-out to my Fashionable NaPoWriMo Partner/NaPoWriMo Partner of Fashion and Most Fashionable Friend of All Time, Zelda, without whom I wouldn’t have made it this month, or, really, any month in the past two years.  Zelda, I am choking back tears, Academy Awards-style, and fashionably.  Zelda, the world cannot produce all of the diamond heart necklaces that you deserve.  You are a beautiful person.

Turn the Wheel and Look Windward

Whenever we feel, we remember
that the world hasn’t kept us

in forgetful snow. You who were
inclined to nothing, nothing, a habit

attached to the pills I took, to get it
off, and so, and privy to the secret

wild, unknown men. Most of these
are you, pressing, lidless, waiting for

preoccupation. or hostile revelation.
I’m glad it’s over.  The intimate

young are usually marred, fragments
I have shored under the firelight, under

the brush, under infinite hope. We are still
a little afraid of the blank

something forbidden, a sense of nothing,
nothing.  At birth, I didn’t mince

my words, an unbroken series
of gestures.  A gorgeous handful

of dust, the promises of life.
We, looking into the heart,

are intricate machines, register
earthquakes, falling towers, Jerusalem,

Athens, Alexandria, dignified
under the name of daring.

Go for credit in the real world. Won’t you try?

Ah, Dearest, Most Fashionable Readers! Upon researching Dearest, Most Fashionable Slash on the internets today, I have learned quite a lot about him. For instance, Slash has a fear of leaving his arm hanging out of the passenger-side windows of cars. Slash also looks at everything from a “very realistic day-to-day, moment-to-moment point of view.” And — and I really think this is absolutely beautiful — his earliest memory: “My grandmother in England dragging me to church on Sunday mornings in the fall and shuffling through the leaves, knowing I had no choice.” Wow! I really, really love that. It’s an incredibly tender, yet realistic, moment.

And that is all for tonight. Except for the poem, yeah. Inspired by none other than John D. Rockefeller. Holla!

The Streets Stained with Crimson

[crimson being a most fashionable color this time of year]