No More Oscars for Weddings and Wars

​Each expensive ceremony 
ordered by necessity
recorded and rewarded
Monday night in America

The Bel Aire swans trumpet
mimicking the rabbi's patois
binding contract under canopy
Guests offer twelve chickens and twelve steps

Design the room for love
adjustable light
sea tossed in each other's hearts
on the reel of life

Hotels bear elegant politics
Mis-en-scene for foreign conflicts
Look up at the canyon of condos
Wilshire terraces boasting yellow ribbons
thank yous on each marquee
to each sand blasted returnee
from the manufactured triumph

The bride's orchids and tulips and fleur-de-lis
cradle in lily pad bouquets
Champagne sprays
the dancers 
like a hydrant in the Bronx
Flowing rhythms rattle fire on the parquet floor
Every surface reflects so no one knows where they are
The light evaporates the edges

Each party member
wears a pomade of pride
with the conscientious style
of a general striding down the press aisle
The best man shuffles in a command
of bad jokes and apologies
laundry lists and an old aunt's kiss
Waiting ladies and hoopla holders
flirting and rolling joints
finger each other's loneliness

The pentagon has perfected
the anxiety free cliché
Reverse all talk
to a gentler honesty
relax all rough words
Death is now a casualty

Animation
censored or designed
by family ordered casting
The best as always
left on the edit room floor
in a rustle of taffeta prayer.

Did I dance with Dustin Hoffman?
Did I sing a lullaby lost in the Limoges?

Where we worry when war is real 
is how assurances are delivered at night
with a wife
and a tv

We make films
to explore ambition
mockery
prosperity

The war we swallow
re-runs sentiments
of a thread lost
without a knot to anchor it a
at the beginning of the mind

The uncensored flesh
would embarrass us
make us see our nakedness
our mess
our ordinary airs

I award myself an Oscar tonight
for my performance
my brilliant mistakes
my hesitations
speaking an unpopular language

The fight for order
can go on and on
indefinitely
if you have nothing else to go with