FOREWORD: Comment on a fashion that should have been abandoned after high school, methinks.

(As this poem parodies Robert Herrick's 'Delight In Disorder', it features for comparison reasons.)

Your mellow state of dishabille
does not achieve a masterpiece,
and yet, I cannot help but steal
a look at how you manage this
half-asleep: your hair’s a mess
without the aid of L’Oreal;
an old skool tie from Junior High
displays the graves where Colgate fell –
Charcoal on your collar sparks
a mystery that makes me smile,
and wonder, is it cigarettes
or iron burns that mark your style?
Your jeans don’t fit (did you lose weight??);
the Nokia reads 9:00,
and frowning at your Papermate,
recall the date – without much luck.

Another boy, a masterpiece,
stirs the heads you failed to turn.
He looks a bit like you, except
I doubt he’s really here to learn.

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Robert Herrick