The Wedding

Little by little, as ants sneak into the premature breeze,
twenty of my closest friends stand as though
complete strangers, trading tales of currency
hapless, helping their abject egos to pretend
this strange fog does not wound their soul

The wedding, with delicacy and tattered bliss swaying,
planned with amnesty and in the daylight
a conspiracy to ratify celestial bonds
two souls prematurely stitched in union
convinced of the eternity of love

Charming, as the bride and her cheery golden face
swim like sand through crashing crystal ocean
sinkholes of sympathy into which ambience
and motorized humility are projected, pried
amplified by smog-induced hysteria varnish

Reality churns in my ears as I am directed forward
suited in the armaments of formality
dripping with emaciated mulishness
anxiety and social anticipation parading
in neat lines along the open white square

Banners and bouquets, arranged in pleasing fashion
magnolias and chrysanthemums and roses
assorted in shape and color with calculation
a wedding planner must engage in tyranny
to pull off such propaganda with efficiency

A marriage is a promise made in anxious allocution
its covenant entered with uniform amiability
and, whose failure is attested in courtrooms
in broken highway unhappiness left crying
children torn into pieces by hate and spite

But with a passing hand and dawning dreariness
ringlets crooning at my eyelids, bare
and tinkering with a ballroom morality
I sit in reflection of open cerulean blood
the ozone everything breathes sweetly

Caramel honor and the sweet afternoon commences
much investment is interpolated in harmony
notes of ecstasy waft upon the grass and trees
insidious smiles of pure intention curl and flash
and photograph hunger is sated with rapport

Bride, entourage, and fanfare with gap-toothed absolution
held close in hushed proclamations of the day
melting into cyanide facetiousness in piteous
rebellion to the commands of apparitions
handiness in the half-mad ferocity of future

The groom, no hint of gloomy predestination or prayer
stands admirably in dress uniform preparation
as always expecting rain or war on barricades
and as the barracudas circle around him
he merely tips his quarantine hat with humor

Fidgeting with brass and abolitionist languor
lying lurid in the fields of Elysium
torpor and tepidity filling viscous souls
temerity rising in crescendo naivety
limpid in its own impressionable way

Navigating Phlegethon with pallid sanctimony
in tears from temporal discharge and
clutching perdition in telling manner
establishment swallows these two
expatriated by orphic prophecy

Appropriated by corruptive nascent hallelujah
expressed in token jubilation remarking
collars of acceptance, crowned in alacrity
supernova swindlers with soaring chaos
giddiness bursting in my daydream soul