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Tina Blue's Beginner's Guide to Prosody, exactly what the title says, and well worth reading.
Epicanthic Fold: "If a guy somewhere in Asia makes a blog and no one reads it, does it really exist?"
popomo.net, miniature, minimalist-inspired sculptures created from industrial cereamics, an art project at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
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Save Point 0.8.1, a Portland, Oregon, exhibit, Aug. 13-Sept. 5, 2004, at Disjecta.
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Weddings of Mass Destruction
By Timothy Bovee
Born 1946The young leapt high for joy as yet another Berlin Wall,
Dividing hearts, did fall. Old Stonewalls,
Filled with fresh memories of ancient oppression,
Stood silently, eyes twinkling at the import of the day.
Happy Phyllis, joyful Del--fifty-one short years as one!
Shared smiles and laughter softly mixed with occasional tears,
In a life-long journey toward the place where couples
Traded vows that no one should be forced to delay.
But from the fearful, shadowed plains did come
A worried murmur, warnings dark of consequences uncontrolled,
From the hour you two plighted heartfelt troth.
Rue the day. Rue the day.
Same-sex marriage will make us pay.
A high price coined in social decay.
So they said, and saw it so:
In the weeks that followed,
In twenty million bungalows from sea to whining sea,
Strong men took to drink, and then with surly growls
Began to beat their undeserving wives.
In eighteen million chilly beds
Man-dazzled women rolled aside with suffering sighs
And said they were too tired that night,
Then darkly plotted ways to stab cruel
Husbands as they slept, with longish
Carving knives. In seven million
Households sons and daughters, well behaved,
Were harshly sent to bed unfed and soon developed
Sores and lice because they were not bathed.
In Deseret, inspired to total disregard
Of familial niceties, two score thousand ardent grooms
and eight score thousand obedient brides did wed;
All wandered off to make some kids.
Soon gangs of gladding revelers, maddened by the thought
Of marriage's demise, roamed the city streets in drunk
Exuberance, robbing passersby of
Wallets colored thin by cheery pinkslips
Writ for jobs FedExed to far Mumbai.
Men and women did shack up
In shockingly cheap motels, renting rooms
In blatant disregard of respectable time
By the hour, not the night. Divorcees and divorcers
Sang a dirge to vivid love now faded to a sad pastel,
As wild-eyed judges drew demented doodles
In lemon legal pads. But the lawyers prospered still.
And so it was that family values bit the dust,
With sights ne'er seen before in human history.
And their nightmare would not end:
The white dogwood failed to bark in season among
The brown and barren Blue Ridge trees.
Gray snow fell in March.
The Moon Calf bid to break the Fathers' law
To elevate the Father's law.
On the Golden coast those happy same-sex
Newlyweds did celebrate their marital bliss with fine champagne,
And sex. The waves of heat rising high
From same-sex connubial beds did cause a part
Of Greenland's ice to weaken, crack and
Slide into the Saltine sea. Embarrassed by this red hot activity,
Blushing currents dived beneath the chilly waves in search
Of peaceful privacy. And as a consequence of so much
Same-sex happiness, drought parched the Middle West
And famine stalked the Middle East
And there were floods in Bangladesh--again.
The shifting weight of water and ice sent
The planet spriraling out of course,
Choking short, in mid-note, its turquoise symphony.
Earth's plunge into the heart of Sol lit creation's
Spacious room with a nova light, intense and bright,
Inspiring other stars, near and far, to spend
Energies long held in tight parsimony as payment
On an orgy of destruction.
Shiva danced.
The universe died.
God looked down.
Wholly Good and wholly Wise and wholly Able, Cold and Cruel,
God winked a penetrating eye.
"Phyllis, Genesis, Del, Leviticus," the Deity intoned.
"The paradigm is plain to see. Tried to tell you so.
"When wed folks of similar physiogamy,
"They do away with God's own monogamy."
Thus their vision ran. But Del and Phyllis ignored the fuss,
and after an interview or two, went home to finish up
Year 51, with hopes for a happy 52, but not counting.
Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, after 51 years together, were the first to wed in San Francisco's glorious celebration of gay, lesbian, bi and trans marriage, February-March 2004.
DayPoems Poem No. 2607
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The DayPoems web site, www.daypoems.net, is copyright 2001-2005 by Timothy K. Bovee. All rights reserved.
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