The gauntlet was tossed and I picked it up

This is my outfit for Patti's Visible Monday. Thanks, Patti! I call this my garden party skirt, it is so dreamy, flowy, and leg-caressing, perfect for the wind we've been having here, a very girly outfit. I really should have taken a photo of me twirling in this, the skirt is so full. There is a matching cap-sleeve top, giraffe pattern as well, but the two together give me motion sickness.

Details of the outfit:

• giraffe-patterned garden party skirt, chiffon with silky lining, new about 25 years ago
• oversized silk beige blouse, oversized silk fuchsia tank and teal top, hand-me-overs
• thrifted patterned coat by a label in Japan, I love this, $10?
• new thrifted squid-ink indigo felt beret, $6
• nude pantyhose, aaaa! but they have a control panel which makes me feel very put together indeed
• thrifted patent black shoes with deadly heels
• magic pendant O made me (I will do a post of his incredible work soon!)

Speaking of motion sickness...in this next photo it looks like I'm scaling the luge track! I've been mucking about in my studio and the perspective on my backdrop so far is satisfyingly real and unreal. Of course the pose and camera angle help.

This post is actually going up late Sunday evening, hours after the end of the St.Patrick's Day parade downtown. You will note that I'm not wearing green. In fact, I don't think I own any green, but I do have a great Irish poem as a tribute to the festivities... 

SAUCY POETRY ALERT!

"A whey-faced slat"* and a "parboiled ape" with a "tough jaw" are some of the delightful descriptives that 17th century Irish poet David O'Bruadair used to describe a wench who refused to give him free beer. A gent friend from Cornwall, whom I banter with in the art gallery cafe from time to time, fired it off to me last summer in good fun. Well, this saucy poem fell like at gauntlet at my feet and I felt it was time for a few female invectives in response, so I fired off my poem "Ten Dollars" in reply. Mine is a clumsy attempt to mimic Mr. O'Bruadair, as translated by James Stephens, but I had so much fun trying! [SORRY, I HAD TO TAKE MY POEM DOWN. I decided that there are too many invectives and I'm looking for more joy! But here is Mr. O'Bruadair's poem.]
*Please use a "U" instead of an "A" in "slat."

A Glass of Beer

by David O'Bruadair

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer;
May the devil grip the whey-faced slat by the hair,
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.

That parboiled ape, with the toughest jaw you will see
On virtue's path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,
And threw me out of the house on the back of my head!

If I asked her master he'd give me a cask a day;
But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.

______________

[MY MISSING POEM GOES HERE]

Do any of you write poetry? Rosemary the Shopper had an excellent poem in her post of February 23, When in Doubt, Turn to Poetry. It's priceless! Any ideas for replacement or additional lines in the poem I wrote? Or, better yet - and I don't expect it because it takes so much time - another poem in response to Mr. O'Bruadair? If nothing else, I would be satisfied with just two male-equivalent phrases as gratifying as "whey-faced slat" and "parboiled ape."

I hope you got a laugh.