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 |