Ransom's Blue Girls Revisited

My poem is patterned after John Crowe Ransom's "Blue Girls." I suppose you could call it a parody. His poem appears below mine. Styling in your leggings, wildly designed, Strutting to classes in your modern schools— While texting. Roll your eyes at those old fools Who think they're so refined. Toss back the pink extensions in your hair, And think no more of SAT's at all. But plan to meet bff's at the mall To shop for earrings there. Make duck-face selfies while guys who watch dream about your lovely, well-toned flesh so tight. It will sag some day, bringing no delight— in spite of firming creams. You think I don't know beauty, but I do! I know a woman with a poison tongue and beady eyes that used to be bright-blue. She turned heads near and far when she was young and surely knocked the shine off all of you. Note: "BFF's" means Best Friends Forever. Also, I've heard that the fish gape pose is now more popular than the duckface pose! Date: February 15, 2021 Contest Title: Open Poetry 2 Sponsor: Charlotte Puddifoot "Blue Girls" by John Crowe Ransom (American poet, critic, essayist, and instructor, 1888-1974) Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward Under the towers of your seminary, Go listen to your teachers old and contrary Without believing a word. Tie the white fillets then about your hair And think no more of what will come to pass Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass And chattering on the air. Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail; And I will cry with my loud lips and publish Beauty which all our power shall never establish, It is so frail. For I could tell you a story which is true; I know a woman with a terrible tongue, Blear eyes fallen from blue, All her perfections tarnished--yet it is not long Since she was lovelier than any of you. found at allpoetry.com/blue-girls Date: February 15, 2021 Contest Title: Open Poetry 2 Sponsor: Charlotte Puddifoot