First Times

My first ever ball dress was scarlet,
before I realised scarlet is not a colour for blondes,
I remember buying it at an exclusive store,
not sure my combat boots and weird hairstyle
gave much confidence to the lady,
who sniffed and queried my signature,
she was more scarlet when it was revealed
I was attending the ball with the owner of the stores son.

I bought the second in a retro shop and altered it somewhat,
with bows meant for shoes and black netting poseur lace,
I topped it with a decadent bowler reminiscent of another era,
by then, I had steel capped combat boots,
I seem to recall a few of us enjoyed playing poker
under a heavy damask clothed table and prudish prunes,
wearing mushroom coloured gowns and no décolletage,
just a stage I was going through at the time
having shed the blond and embraced the brunette era,
fair roots growing through are so incongruous though.

For my sisters' wedding I bought a designer classic
it shimmered, cut into a 1920's style, I had a bob
that fell like silk and shielded a lack of confidence,
my feet were classically conformed into dyed shoes,
a shade of midnight blue that shimmered in the underskirt,
I was the lady of the blue moon, hiding in sequences.

Since then, there have been many gowns in many colours,
many shoes worn and many tears shed,
I prefer the gown of sea grass, I never wore it
lying still in tissue paper, I changed my mind at the last
but I'm still the poker playing girl in a retro gown
adorned with shoe bows and a window dressers black netting.




Poetry by Elle The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 708 times
Written on 2015-01-31 at 19:17

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Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
This is a perfect Elle poem, full of precise descriptions of what was and what, for one reason or another, never came to be. I love the image of the sea-grass gown, what you might have been, but decided against being. Do you ever put it on, anyway?
2015-02-03


jim The PoetBay support member heart!
I didn't have many occasions for formal wear, but I had plenty of "first times." You, once again, caught it, whatever "it" is.

All I know is that "it" is gone. That era, our era, really could be summed up with "combat boots and weird hairstyle." The bowler hat is icing on the cake. My style leaned toward grunge, long before there was Grunge.

"mushroom coloured gowns and no décolletage"

is one of the all-time great lines.

I think I'll print this, and give it my "kids," an inkling into that era, better conveyed than any movie that tries to recreate what can't be recreated.

This reminds me of a poem about the beach at St. Ives I read years ago, misfits on the beach, listening to transistor radios, dancing and bonfires, and renting beach chairs they'd stolen to tourists.

I remember thinking, We were so right, and They were so wrong.
2015-02-01



I love it too! The passage of time through fashion. Beautiful!
~Ashe
2015-01-31



Toujours à la mode. Very effective use of choice of style to reflect the passages in your life. Liked.
2015-01-31