I don’t think I’ve ever had a real favorite color (or colour). But I needed to answer the question: what is it? So, I used to say it was blue. I like green, too.
And while I don’t like yellow cars (think lemons), pants, shirts, or journalism; Motorcycles, flowers, and mellow yellow songs all do well in Amarillo yellow. Also, I liked Jay’s pumpkin colored, semi-yellow-orange Porsche, which was kind of sweet.
Today’s Prompt-areno (it’s been three weeks, folks) is to write a poem that repeats and/or focuses on a single color. While any color would do, I went ahead with ubiquitous blue. It meets prompt.
Overstated
I thought I was cool, or at least being so,
like I would know the trick,
but I was advised
that I looked more like a fool,
the colors were a little bit sick.
My shirt, pants, and shoes were all shades of blues
but shade makes the difference, thus I donned—
a lighter shirt in a bland shade of green.
That was yesterday.
Now at home, I write a blue poem about my casuals,
while wearing a two-tone blue top
and mixed-up blue bottom that is not to be seen.
Long ago, my eyes were blue, but now some say green,
depending on the day,
my shirt,
and my blue-eyed soul.
We dance to the Blue Danube waltz,
and we swim in blue waters,
we pine for the bright blue sky,
then in August we wonder why.
Blue Ridge Mountains take me back,
a Blue Duck sits on my desk
or maybe it’s some Lonesome Dove’s
dark psychotic character.
Like red and yellow, blue is primary.
Mixing gets us shades of green or purple
or a midnight-something.
Blue nose or blue toes, blue jeans on blue teens,
blue men in a Vegas troupe.
Blue moods and Mondays
are both downers but not the blues of bennies,
and blue shaved ice is coconut flavored on blue tongues.
Navy blue is almost black, and baby blue is much too tac.
So blue is good, and blue is bad, and blue can even say
that we are in a mood or feeling sad.
But I thought it through and through
and I must admit,
if I did have a favorite color,
it would probably be something like
a deeper shade of blue.
Look both ways but try not to see red when looking at blue.
Mind the gaps in mismatched tops and bottoms, but blue is the truest of the cools.
Note: Dear beloved English teachers, current and past, I realize every sentence is not a complete sentence. It is intentional. Sorry.
For those of you not of my generation, may you be so lucky as to become old someday, to grow wiser than ever, and to be an able matriarch or patriarch of your tribe. May you be honored for your past, cherished for wisdom today, and be a loss lamented when your time happens.
My wife Facebook shared/posted a (much too) long epistle that numerically listed 21 items of advice for old people (like we effing need it). I don’t agree with most of it. My oldest (adult) son made the sarcastic comment (it’s in his genes), “Dad’s always been on top of the latest fashions.”
I never wear socks with sandals (matured in 60-70-80s), checks or plads with stripes, or color combos that make my wife wince. I wore a uniform for years, then (after a period of high-casual) went as laid back as I could pull off.
I was once asked by a fellow manager how I ran a department where employees (include me) dressed casual Friday, Monday thru Thursday. He told me he asked upper management and got an emphatic ‘NO!” My response was, “I didn’t ask.”
But, Billy has a point.
My below the waist wardrobe: shorts, sweat pants, or jeans (clean underwear). Feet: usually short socks, slide-on shoes of some kind with rubber soles (no crocks), maybe laces, rarely sandals, very temperature dependent. I rotate sneakers but have some for rain and some for mud.
Upper bod gets things with no buttons like an old (maybe new) tee, or pullover long sleeve thingy, or sweatshirt. Formal shirts have collars like golf/polo type. Have some mock turtlenecks for when I feel all cool Pat Conroy, John Updike, or Patterson-ish like.
Dark color, pull-over sweaters for my shady moods and gloomy times of Peter Reading, Poe, Blake, e. e., T.S., A.E., Ezra, or G.G. Lord Byron-ish days. I have them.
I wear baseball (sometimes newsboy/Irish eight-piece/flat) caps.
I have clothes I no longer wear (since retired): Docker-like slacks, dress pants (not sure what still fits), sport coats covered to keep dust off, ‘nice’ long-sleeved button-down shirts (dusty), leather shoes (no wingtips or suede).
One pair of hiking boots I also use for motor scooter rides. I do have variations of workout garb that changes with the weather. A mix of sweat or beach hoodie thingies (how cold is it?) including a red rain jacket. Casual jackets, several of which I cannot recall ever having worn. I have my USAF leather flight jacket that screams ‘you put on a few’ when I wear it.
At home, it’s about how I feel. Out, it depends. I may be professor R.J. at the library, but more Chinasky at the pub. Writing at coffee shops is mood-determined. On my worst low-casual day, I look better than half the peeps in Wally World (maybe more than half), but who cares?
The last time I wore a tie either somebody died, got hitched, or I was being paid to dress like that. I have tossed a ton of ties, but a dusty dozen remain in my closet with all those belts. I wear one belt and only with jeans, but have beaucoup backups.
I try to keep my hair cut short (no old man pony tails for me, thanks), I brush and floss daily, walk about 2mi a day (when motivated), swim a bit more than that in week (shower daily after swim), sit way too much at this computer, go to one or two ‘social’ events a week, read not enough, watch some (too much) TV (The Voice, NCIS [needs me to write for them], Chicago PD, Fire, Med-maybe, an occasional Netflix movie or documentary, Bull a bit, some football [maybe]). If I go to the movie (or other) theater, I will dress medium casual, but at home…eff-it.
I really do care.
So, what’s up with (in) my closet? An old flight suit that no way would ever fit again, covered sports jacks and an old Class-A, USAF uniform (‘when I wore a younger man’s clothes’), too many shirts of which I wear less than half, pants that if not jeans I never wear, and two baskets for shorts, sweat pants, and miscellaneous whatever.
In drawers I have socks (mostly over-ankle types worn less than one day a week, if it is a socks day), underwear of which some %-age always needs tossed out, more tees, and too many pull over sweaters (all of which I like and do intend to wear, [see mood comments above] but I live in Texas). ‘tis the season, though – twenty-five degrees here this morning, which is why I sit writing this instead of out humpin’ for my 2 miles. Do not hang pullover sweaters on hangers. It gives them (you) shoulder bumps.
Okay. The truth is that I am an old man who basically does WTF he wants and has a dress and grooming code/standard bar set at ‘somewhat’ acceptable, if anyone cares. I do not wear stink (fragrances like cologne or after shave). Me? A fool? I think not; but passionate? Hell, YES! (Just not about my rags.) So, let’s end this with a poem by Yeats.
A prayer for old age by WB Yeats
God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;
From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;
O what am I that I should not seem
For the song’s sake a fool?
I pray—for word is out
And prayer comes round again—
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man.
Intense?
Look both ways on the closet rack and ask, “why do I have?”
Mind the gaps in the closet, for a tie’s a poor gift to an old man who’d be tickled with a kiss.
Our Literary Journey 