Epithalamium Redux Redux

The poem below first appeared on this blog on February 26, 2004, during the period when then San Francisco Mayor (now Lieutenant Governor) Gavin Newsom unilaterally directed the City of San Francisco to license same-sex marriages. That original post had a tentative "do I dare" quality to it that irks me a bit now, though that tone was more or less consistent with the tenor of the time in which it was written andmight serve as a marker for how the times have changed. The poem itself is something of an oddity, bringing a light verse form to bear on a subject of some little seriousness, but I still like it eight years on.

Back in 2004 the California Supreme Court ruled within a month that the City of San Francisco had no legal authority to license marriages not specifically authorized by state law, but it also invited the City to challenge the limitations of those statutes in court. The City did, and that case eventually worked its way through the system and back to the court that suggested it. Four years ago today, May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court declared in In re Marriage Cases that the restriction of marriage to couples of differing genders was impermissible under the California Constitution. On that same day four years ago it seemed appropriate to republish, and I did, with less circumspection than on the first time round.

In the ensuing four years, the voters of California have amended the state's Constitution via Proposition 8, for the express purpose of reversing the state Supreme Court's decision. That Court has confirmed that the constitutional amendment was lawfully adopted and is binding upon it, so that there is no longer a state-constitutional basis for an expansive definition of marriage. Quite the opposite in fact: the state constitution is now explicit in defining marriage as strictly a man-woman arrangement. A challenge to Proposition 8 under the U.S. Constitution has since produced decisions in the U.S. District Court and from a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals finding the Proposition constitutionally impermissible. The outcome of the challenges to Proposition 8 remains inconclusive, however, pending further en banc review by the Ninth Circuit and an expected/inevitable petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Given that I have republished it on a rough four year cycle, and given that the President of the United States made his views on this subject explicit suring this past week, the time seems right to roll these verses out again, so roll them out I shall:

~~~

Epithalamium

I

Hymen, Hymenaeus!
Gay men and lesbians
Flock to the City Hall,
Follow their bliss,

Purchase their licenses,
Swear to their permanence,
Pose for the camera crews
Sharing a kiss.

II

Damned, sir?  They’re damned, you say?
Possibly, possibly:
Love has led millions to
Suffer a Fall.

That’s for the next world, sir;
Here with the living -- well,
What was it Chaucer said?
“Love conquers all.”

III

Poets, sir. Love poets.
Some of the best have been
Gay, sir.  Consider this
List I’ve compiled:

Wystan Hugh Auden and
C.P. Cavafy and
Sappho. James Merrill, Thom
Gunn, Oscar Wilde.

IV

Legally, legally,
Should an impediment
Rise to the marriage of
Minds that are true?

Sure as there’s only one
Race, sir -- the human race --
How would you feel if it
Happened to you?

V

Citizens, citizens,
Leave to your churches these
Questions of sanctity,
Tough and profound.

Secular governments
Ought to facilitate
Binding of lovers who
Yearn to be bound.

VI

Hymen, Hymenaeus!
Cleave to the one who’s your
Heart’s true companion, the
Thou to your I.

Now, when the times are so
Fearsome we all must, as
Auden says, “love one a-
nother or die.”

~~~

Epithalamium Redux

The California Supreme Court is due to release its decision on gay marriage about an hour from now, which is as good an excuse as any to reprint my double dactyl cycle on the subject, first posted -- with more trepidation than now seems warranted -- in February 2004. 

The original occasion for the poem was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's directive to the City's authorities to license and endorse same-sex marriages.  That policy was ordered stayed shortly thereafter, and the matter has been under review by the state Supreme Court until today.  What the Court will decide and where matters will go from there is as yet a mystery -- perhaps as much of a mystery as the intricacies of human affection.

I hadn't looked back at this for at least a year or two before returning to it today.  On reflection, it stands as one of the things I am most pleased with having posted here.  Please bear with me, then, as I repeat myself:

~~~

Epithalamium

I

Hymen, Hymenaeus!
Gay men and lesbians
Flock to the City Hall,
Follow their bliss,

Purchase their licenses,
Swear to their permanence,
Pose for the camera crews
Sharing a kiss.

II

Damned, sir?  They’re damned, you say?
Possibly, possibly:
Love has led millions to
Suffer a Fall.

That’s for the next world, sir;
Here with the living -- well,
What was it Chaucer said?
“Love conquers all.”

III

Poets, sir. Love poets.
Some of the best have been
Gay, sir.  Consider this
List I’ve compiled:

Wystan Hugh Auden and
C.P. Cavafy and
Sappho. James Merrill, Thom
Gunn, Oscar Wilde.

IV

Legally, legally,
Should an impediment
Rise to the marriage of
Minds that are true?

Sure as there’s only one
Race, sir -- the human race --
How would you feel if it
Happened to you?

V

Citizens, citizens,
Leave to your churches these
Questions of sanctity,
Tough and profound.

Secular governments
Ought to facilitate
Binding of lovers who
Yearn to be bound.

VI

Hymen, Hymenaeus!
Cleave to the one who’s your
Heart’s true companion, the
Thou to your I.

Now, when the times are so
Fearsome we all must, as
Auden says, “love one a-
nother or die.”

~~~

Illustration: "Sappho" from the Musei Capitolini, Rome, via Wikimedia Commons.

Adieu, Adele, Farewell

Yesterday afternoon, I played hooky from the office and trundled off to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to view the five Gustav Klimt paintings taken from the Bloch-Bauer family by the Nazis and recently retrieved through diligent lawyering.  (Previous posts on the Klimts: March 16 and April 7.) 

Today is the last day to see the paintings in Los Angeles.   Lines will likely be long: there was a 45-minute wait at around 4:00 p.m. yesterday.  I overheard security staff reporting that the lines have been long throughout the paintings' display, and they can only have become longer in the past few weeks since the centerpiece of the room, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, became the world's most expensive painting when cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder purchased it -- for New York's Neue Galerie, where all five paintings will be going on display beginning July 13 -- for $135 Million.  In any case, what's 45 minutes when you get to gaze on the face of eternity, eh?

While seeing the first portrait of Adele is the reason for most visitors' visit to the show, the other four paintings are also very fine.  Adele Bloch-Bauer II, painted five years after A B-B I, gives an idea of what Matisse might have produced if he had painted Viennese society women instead of odalisques.

As a parting gift to Ms. Bloch-Bauer, this Fool is inspired to his first double-dactyl since last October:

~~~

Not Every Flower in Austria's
an Edelweis

Glimmering, glistering,
Klimt's Adele Bloch-Bauer's
Blazoned with eyes from her
Thighs to her shoes:

Fräulein von Österreich,
Jugendstil patroness,
Fin de sièclische
Viennese muse.

~~~

Bonus Artsy Applet:  By way of Lifehacker, it's the Rijkswidget, available in Windows and Mac flavors, delivering each day a fresh work from the collections of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam to your desktop.

Two-Tank Common, Two Cents Plain

How I Spent My Tuesday Afternoon:

I confess it: I slipped away yesterday afternoon, family in tow, to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), there to succumb yet again to the charms of the Boy King, the Pharaoh, that most 'gyptianest of the Egyptians, the one and only . . .

TUT!

There is criticism galore associated with the financial arrangements surrounding this tour, which is organized as a for-profit venture with correspondingly high ticket prices, but I cannot help but be pleased to have an opportunity to see more of the fine fine artifacts that the 18th Dynasty was capable of producing.  There is almost no overlap between the current touring materials and what was seen here nearly 30 years ago, meaning that, yes, most of the most patently spectacular objects have stayed in Cairo this time around.  Still, if you are as easily seduced as I am by beautifully wrought artifacts from some 3000-odd years agone, the current exhibition is certainly worth seeing during its few remaining weeks in Los Angeles.  Florida (Fort Lauderdale), Philadelphia and Chicago get it over the next two years.

This jolly archaeological jaunt has moved me to poetry, specifically to my first double-dactyl in many many months, to wit:

Tut Tut Tutsie

Roi des Egyptiens,
Fair Tutankhamen-oh,
Reigned for ten years before
Coming to grief;

Now on display in L.
A., he's explained by the
Unctuous narration of
Omar Sharif.

~~~

I am a regular victim of the Curse of Free Association.  I was looking for an image of Howard Carter, who located Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922, and searched his name in Google Images.  That led to a version of the image above, attached to this rather interesting weblog post at the now-seemingly-inactive ideofact.  The image (you can click to enlarge it somewhat) is, of course, a poster for the magician Carter the Great -- exploiting the similarity between his name and that of Lord Carnarvon's favorite Egyptologist -- whose fictional version appears in Glen David Gold's thoroughly entertaining novel, Carter Beats the Devil.  A further search for that poster image led to this page, from which you can access an array of Carter's posters and advertisements, including the image above and the poster with the Devilish card sharp that serves as the cover for Gold's book.  Those who have read the book may also appreciate these images selling "The Lion's Bride," an illusion of some importance to the plot.

Fun Things To Make and To Do:  Whether or not you have read the book, you can help Carter beat the Devil, here.

 

 

Foolgrave's Golden Treasury

I follow most of the weblogs that I follow via their RSS feeds through Bloglines, saving items that might later turn up here are links.   Quite the little backlog of poetry-related links has been accumulating there, so this post will serve to flush them out.   As an incentive for those of you who aren't interested in this sort of thing (i.e., the rational majority of my readers) I have a brand new double-dactyl awaiting you below.  Now, sing in me, Muse!...

• Prodigal's Return Dept.:

All together now: "First there is a Henry then there is no Henry then there is."

In other words, the rumors of Henry Gould's disappearance from poetry weblogging have happily proven only temporarily true.  HG was drawn back in in part by a series of e-mails between Reginald Shepherd and Josh Corey that Josh began posting on April 28; additional installments have popped up on May 5 and May 9.  Yes, it is all part of the ongoing, oft tiresome "conservative/ formalist/ Quietudinist vs. progressive/ avant/ post-avant/ Phlogistonian" debate, the principal effect of which is to produce an unattractive glaze over the eyes of those who lack the zealots' inclination to pick a side and fight for it, but it is an often well stated contribution to the discussion.

• Advice to the Lyric-lorn Dept.:

I was obliged to walk around wearing a goofy grin after reading this headline at Sploid:

Walt Whitman's Beyond The Grave Message: Don't Become a Poet!

Here is the full story, and the key passage:

'First, don't write poetry; second ditto; third ditto,' Whitman says.  'You may be surprised to hear me say so, but there is no particular need of poetic expression.  We are utilitarian, and the current cannot be stopped.'

The Good Grey Poet recommends getting a job, in the printing game if possible.  Creative writing programs take note.

• "I am known by many names . . ." Dept.:

I have accumulated no fewer than eight (8) saved links to recent posts by Greg Perry on his weblog g r a p e z, which suggests the level of pleasure I have been deriving from it of late. 

Having honored National Poetry Month by giving up poetry, Greg has since turned over a substantial tract of his virtual turf to a burgeoning clan of alter egos, beginning with bluesman manqué Son Rivers.  More Son appears here ["Cynthia Forsythia,/ the goddess of fertility . . ."], here [the body electric is backhandedly invoked], here [lunch is eaten], and here [divers trees become involved].

On Monday of this week, three more personae joined the jam, introduced by Greg as "Ry Foote, a stalwart formalist if I ever knew one; Tweed Majors, a connoisseur of all brands of free verse and graceful perceptions; and last but certainly not least, Nolo Lingua, card-carrying member of the avant-garde."   Tweed posts a poem, provoking a colloquy among the lot of them:

Foote: Poetry must be a strong republic, but with protocol.
Lingua: Poetry is anything the reader wants it to be.
Rivers: Very well, and who is this character Harry?
Majors: Harry is a left-handed pitcher nick-named God.
Foote: Oh my God, you’re pretentiously hopeless.
Lingua: There is no God and there is no poem.

And so on.  I'll be staying tuned.

• Inevitable Paglia Content Dept.:

I am now midway through reading Break, Blow, Burn: Camille Paglia Reads Forty-Three of the World's Best Poems, which has gotten me to William Carlos Williams (Paglia goes for the obvious choices there: those white chickens and those cold delicious plums).  It is, so far, a solid collection of close readings of (mostly) very good poems.  It is a worthy and interesting attempt to reach a general audience that may have forgotten, or never learned, how poetry works and what rewards a little effort can bring in reading it.  Well intentioned, and sprinkled over with the sort of cross-disciplinary zingers that made Sexual Personae such fun.  More miscellaneous Pagliana:

• Ann Althouse reports on a Paglia sighting (with photos) in Madison, Wisconsin

• Kerry Howley at Hit and Run notes an appearance at the American Enterprise Institute, with video.  [Caution: video link does not function properly in the Firefox browser; one must use the backward-looking Internet Explorer.]

• The transcript of a CBC Radio interview.  ["English literature continues to be sexual right into the 18th century – think of Tom Jones  – and it’s not until the 19th century where you see an attempt to purge all the sex out of it."]

• And all this book tour hubbub has drawn out one of my increasingly rare double dactyls, to wit:

Les Poemes au Camille

Higgledy, piggledy,
Pròfessor Paglia --
Sexy persona, rhe-
torical zest,

Vigorous critical
Paraphernalia --
Breaks, blows ‘n’ burns, in her
Quest for the best.

What's Ha-Pnin? -- the Return of the Double Dactyls

Perhaps you have been curious as to why I have posted no new double dactyls since before the turn of the year.  I blame a drought of inspiration, and a temporary inability to spot or conjure up properly dactylic proper names. 

Yesterday morning standing beneath a hot shower -- prime conditions for composing double dactyls in one's head -- I thought of the six-syllabled name of the emigré author of such modern classics as Lolita and Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov.  A subject, at last!  My pleasure dissipated, however, as I realized that the name only fit properly if one mispronounced it.  But soft! is that the metaphorical sound of life's metaphorical lemons being squeezed to produce a bracing pitcher of metaphorical lemonade?  Indeed it is, and the result of quaffing that refreshing faux-Parnassian draught is this, my first double dactyl of two-double-ought-five:

A Pronouncement

Lovely Lolita says:
"'Vlah-dimir Nah-bokov'
Isn't correct when pro-
nouncing his name.

"Don't Stand So Close to Me
Has it all wrong: say 'Vla-
Dih-mir Na-boh-kov' or
Wither in shame."

For Further Reading:  The writer provides guidance in the correct pronunciation of his name in this interview from 1965; he also gives pointers for speaking of another of his creations, Professor Pnin.  Elsewhere, in the "You Never Know What You Might Find on the Internet" category: CNN provides an interactive map on which to trace the travels of Humbert Humbert and Miss Dolores Haze from the redwood forests to the Gulf's green waters.

Bonus Poetry Content:  On the occasion of our improving Southern California weather, under the influence of Schenectady's own haikuEsq, a postdiluvian haiku of sorts:

Storm clouds withdrawn
Rainbow climbs
Above the car wash

Happy Warholidays

The oft-bilious James Wolcott kept Christmas in his heart on his weblog in properly New York-ish fashion by posting seasonal entries from the Diaries of Andy Warhol for the years 1979, 1980 [caution: explicit sexual remarks], 1983, and 1986. 

Coincidentally, the late artist was on my mind as well, as this new double dactyl came to me yesterday in a vision while showering:

The Campbell’s Is Coming

Poppity, poppity,
Andrew Warhola with
Soup can in hand scans the
Factory scene,

Mumbling prophetically:
“Minutes of Fame each shall
Have in the future, but
Only fifteen.”

 

Parisians on the Grass, Alas

There There

Zippity, zippity,
Alice B. Toklas served
Brownies at bedtime and
Everyone tripped;

Gertrude Stein dreamt of the
Battle of Agincourt:
“Arrows is arrows is
Arrows,” she quipped.

Yabut-Dabba-Doo

In response to my self-absorbed birthday verse below, David Giacalone took his first foray into the double dactyl form.  (He is generally a haiku and senryu sort of a versifier.) 

Today being David's own natal day . . . and that of his twin Arthur . . . and presumably that of David's various alter egos -- ethicalEsq, skepticalEsq, haikuEsq and the incorrigible Professor Yabut -- this verse is proffered in honor of them all:

To a One-Breath Pundit and Bard of the Bar

Annually, annually,
David the Ethical
(and his twin brother) more
Elderly grow.

Haiku sustains him, and
Weblogging Fools wish him
Well, with a Hey-nonny,
Hey-nonny noh!

 

A Little Dact'll Do Ya

Yesterday, December 5, marked the 71st anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.
Tomorrow, December 7, will mark the somewhat better known 63rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. 
And today, what do we find, slipped in between those dates of real historical importance?

A Song of Myself - 12/06/04

Jiggedy, jiggedy,
George “a fool” Wallace is
Fond of a dactylic
Dimeter line.

Here he is, gettin’ all
Self-referential-like:
“Friends, it’s my birthday: I’m
Two score and nine.”

Extra special thanks to my parents, of course, without whom my life would be a wild surmise at best.