Poems for "Bigo" (not Big O, if you get my drift)

I came across Anne Carson’s “The Beauty of the Husband” weeks ago – And so why did I love him from early girlhood to late middle age/And the divorce decree came in the mail?/Beauty, no great secret/ Not ashamed to say I loved him for his beauty/As I would again if he came near/Beauty convinces/You know beauty makes sex possible/Beauty makes sex, sex/

This made me reflect on damage, er, marriage, what’s the spelling? Or how is it spelled? – these were the running jokes in college. My friend Godo even had a wisecrack “Marriage? You must be tired of living.”

I can count by my left hand the number of times I’ve attended a wedding in the last 5 years. I guess my friends prefer to live in sin or are mostly gay and can’t get married or are mostly dry-eyed spinsters like me. Oftentimes, I jest that the prime benefit of marriage is the sex becoming legal but not necessarily better.

As the poem suggests, will love transcend the loss of beauty? Will sex and sex alone keep the marital bed burning? Carole King sang “Will you still love me tomorrow?” which is a far realistic love song than say, “I love you more today than yesterday but not as much as tomorrow” which is a bit spaced-out talking about the future on certain terms – pure baloney.

All the jadedness aside, it sure takes a lot of balls to decide to get married and remain married. I used to say that I could not imagine myself organizing my life around a single person but Georgelablab, this abandoned pup looking so lost and earnest outside the dorm, wormed his doggie charm into my heart and I found my life literally revolving around a dog and I was not even raised to be a dog-lover. This is not to compare a dog to a husband but in terms of affections and commitment involved, it’s almost on the same plane.

What makes marriages tick? There are formulas and there are formulae. Most people are convinced it’s having a dynamic communication. From where I sit, it’s more of self-sacrifice – staying faithful, forgiving shortcomings, putting yourself in the shoes of the other, agreeing to disagree, humbling oneself, all these demand sacrifice. Not unless one is prepared to go the distance should the idea of marriage be even entertained.

Fidelity-this will spawn volumes and volumes of treatise and I remember a bittersweet poem I read in college – I went downtown tonight/to the capital under the clear moon/I came home: what did I see?/Four legs under my quilt/Used to be two of them were mine/but what about the other two?/ Tonight, I’m sure of this/the other two are not mine. (“Song,” Cho Yong)

Poetry isn’t exactly the most popular artform but its power isn’t exactly diminished. I’ve started posting poems I like at FS and the reactions I receive are unexpectedly tremendous. Poetry has an audience contrary to some notions that it has no effect on people, specially the younger set. This poem was well-received so I am reposting it here.

My Husband Discovers Poetry (Diane Lockward, from Eve's Red Dress,Wind Publications)

Because my husband would not read my poems,

I wrote one about how I did not love him.

In lines of strict iambic pentameter,

I detailed his coldness, his lack of humor.

It felt good to do this.
Stanza by stanza, I grew bolder and bolder.

Towards the end, struck by inspiration,

I wrote about my old boyfriend,

a boy I had not loved enough to marry

but who could make me laugh and laugh.

I wrote about a night years after we parted

when my husband's coldness drove me from the house

and back to my old boyfriend.

I even included the name of a seedy motel

well-known for hosting quickies.

I have a talent for verisimilitude.
In sensuous images, I described

how my boyfriend and I stripped off our clothes,

got into bed, and kissed and kissed,

then spent half the night telling jokes,

many of them about my husband.

I left the ending deliberately ambiguous,

then hid the poem awayin an old trunk in the basement.
You know how this story ends,

how my husband one day loses something,

goes into the basement,

and rummages through the old trunk,

how he uncovers the hidden poemand sits down to read it.

But do you hear the strange sounds

that floated up the stairs that day,

the sounds of an animal, its paw caught

in one of those traps with teeth of steel?

Do you see the wounded creature

at the bottom of the stairs,

his shoulders hunched over and shaking,

fist in his mouth and choking back sobs?

It was my husband paying tribute to my art.

(graphics by www.slowpokecomics.com)