eastersays

Recently, I read some posts online about gay marriage that disheartened me. Everyone seems to miss the point. It's not about parading around for a day, it's not about making a religious statement, it's not about being a diva; it hasn't been a national issue for the pomp and circumstance.

Marriage is about the moment of vowing your life to another. It's about the celebration of love. It's about joining your families and friends around you to oversee the coming of the rest of your lives together. But it comes with its privileges. Whatever the history of marriage, whatever the first marriages were based upon (most likely ownership of a woman in some patrilineal society, as often seen today), marriage has become a social cornerstone for certain rights.

Without being married, two elderly people cannot share the same room in a retirement home, legally.

Without being married, one partner cannot be present in a hospital room overnight, no matter how much they love the person lying in the bed. Beyond that, they are not privy to certain information if their partner is in surgery, the IC Unit, or even dead.

Without being married, a widowed partner cannot collect their love's Social Security, Pensions, or other fundamental source of income, which they may depend upon for housing, prescriptions, et cetera.

Without being married, can you file your taxes as married? That's right, you can't. There's no "But We're in Love" box to check off.

The marriage certificate solidifies a family unit, and offers further rights. These rights are the more pressing issue. These fundamental rights.

Let's not discuss the muckery that heterosexual marriage often becomes. But everyone in the bible belt wants to claim that it's a religious, sacred, right-wing institution into which no homosexuals should be allowed. Yet look at what heterosexual marriages often are in the US. Research the divorce rate. Here's some help:

***What is the divorce rate in Oklahoma? The answer in Oklahoma is complicated. Counties across the state of Oklahoma collect the information, but report it differently (and some don't report at all). It continues to be challenging to access good information. What we DO know about Oklahoma divorce data is that, according to the last published numbers from 1996, divorce in Oklahoma ranked in the top 5 for number of divorces by state of residence. In addition, according to a 2001 statewide survey about marriage and divorce, 39% of Oklahoma adults, who have ever been married, have been divorced.

In fact, Oklahoma's high divorce rate is one of the reasons that led to the creation of the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. A joint study by the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University found that several social indicators, including divorce, were a large part of the cause of poverty in Oklahoma. Thus, the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative set out to provide access to marriage education services as one aspect of a comprehensive prevention strategy.
(from http://www.okmarriage.org/Services/OklahomaDivorce.asp) [If OK isn't safe, who is?]

***The divorce rate in America for first marriage, vs second or third marriage
50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.”

According to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America:
The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%
(from http://www.divorcerate.org/)

So, with these numbers in mind, can we deny a dying person the right to hold the love of their life's hand because they're gay and marriage is a sacred institution? I think hate is more sacrilegious than gay marriage. Sacrilege to the human intellect and the human soul.

Half moon (in the sixth month)
and stars (above a blue
blanket in a small field)
watch as I rest my head
in the crook of your arm

Are we alone?

We have each other, Moon
has her stars, stars their fire.
In our own paths, we meet,
suddenly, and are drawn
to orbit, circling you,

you circling me.

Chiselling ice into diamond;
excavating gold from silver,
from tin, from Barbie's plastic hair:
Watching the chameleon
match her rose garden, her mother,
matching Aphrodite
in white. A vow in such a kiss,
hello, not just goodnight. 

Dripping with yolk,
Marrow from Adam's rib,
A fallen tear: spent from my eye:
Tracing lines on your cheek;
A worrisome bead of your sweat
Rolling along my back
To where we meet. 

Walk backwards down a dark trail, dive
again into that murky creek
to get to the other side. See
the Moon in retrograde, rising
back to its eerie apex. Feel
the same chill inch along your spine.

Freedom from Memory?
We have stood here before;
it still remains with us:
the weight of a pearl on
a broken oyster shell
after the robbery. 

Your kiss is cavernous:
Stalagmite-tongued, with sucking winds
sweeping me into recesses;

Your taste buds are swollen:
saliva settling, awaiting
my reflexion. I drink you 

simply because I can.
I savor your soothing waters
and begin to sweat. I want you: 

I stumble deeper still,
searching for some hidden treasure
stored safe in the darkest corners. 

I fear most the collapse.
Your kiss is cavernous. 

When everyone else plays the fool,
it's good to be with the hero.

So I just went back, searching for a poem I wrote years ago...it was a pretty good poem...one that I ripped apart completely & reinvented tonight with only the 1st line intact; and as I read over the poems on here, I realized that 99.9% of the older ones are sh*t. Serious sh*t. A few of them, honestly, were sh*t because they were written in a very structured way for a course I took many, many years ago, where the teacher (hence, the grade) didn't care about the poem itself, but simply the execution of form. (Ridiculous, I know.) But a lot of them are truly sh*t. I don't believe I posted them. And the really good ones hardly ever make an appearance on here...which is CRAZY. The poem I was searching for isn't even up. WTF was I thinking???

Maybe the songs have all been sung
and the silence that stumbles
over fields and hills
(like shadow and fog
and sweet, soft drizzle
on this April morning)
is all that is left to a world
where music was once worth a war.

Maybe the muses have gone away
with their whispers on the air...
Who can bear the white page staring up
from under the weight of the capped pen?
Poets no longer hear
the sound of the word.
(It too is said: the siren
has fallen into silence.)

Mythology (only in memory),
it has all come undone:
The world has seen
a love like ours,
and can no longer
bear those lesser things:
your eyes are the perfect poem;
your lips, the sweetest song.

I am not afraid of you. Your shadow
does not fall over this mind.
Most thoughts on our past together
are brief,      they do not linger
at the door with well-wishes
(that are often bottomless).
Your face must've been one
of which I could forget every line
(in paraphrasing the poet), for I
do not see a one if I try.
The weight of your hand
is all I recall: but not a breath,
not a warmth, not a footfall
left me to smile at; for you were someone
who lumbered through,
a bowling ball, leaving
disorder in your bumbling wake.
I may not wish you ill,
but I do not wish you well...
instead, I want for you only
the nothing that was given me.

I live 5 minutes from death.
My days are full of soft kisses,
gentle touches, ecstasy.

I can only be happy;
I think my heart may burst.

"Show me the way."

Can one hand know another?
Does one need meet another?

Good and evil,
the inevitability of each,
can it be nulified? quantified? magnified?

Calculate me my own heart --
Tell me the percentages --
Print out my summary --
Proof is more than this.

To know me, you must live inside me
for more than 2 months,
for more than 2 years.
To know me, there must be a need & a want:
Search for the meaning. 

I lay up instead of down:
my thoughts have grown out
as roots at the back of my head
and would break my mind apart

(you never saw
this side of me)

The ground lay quiet
brown and green four thousands in miles
This platform: cold
wood from the 40s, rotting slowly under me
No sun, no moon,
no lights down the track, as I wait, and I wait
Yet how to wait
for the train that may never land, for the plane
that may never pull in, for something mysterious
and doubtful, something dark and alluring,
some vexing circumstance to befall, unseen,
from the land, the sea, the sky, from within
I stand alone in the dusk
I watch the brown earth blow into the greenery
I listen for sign of arrival
and meet none; I stand alone

I should wait here
But would you stay if it was asked of you?

Lines do not cross
but words can stumble across the earth
Why, the sacrifice mine to carry
to this platform
in two bags and a backpack
and stand beside
till the day the 7:00 train is on time

Today my skin turned to cracked,
parched terra. My feet are roots
that reach for something missed.
My eyes rained upon my chest
and, too quickly, were soaked up.
But my tongue is a wise snake
who would bargain for a soul. 

Always trying to ride the wave
that breaks apart the heart
and leaves homeless to drown

I have waited. I wait.
Patience is a virtue
but how do I live?

The lines have been drawn
in haste. They are blurry.
They make me dizzy.

I want to sit on a beach
that does not become ruins
and just enjoy the day. 

You couldn't hold a lit candle to me ---
Let alone what you'd enjoy holding out
To me. Your ignorance bleeds from your mouth,
Falls upon deaf ears; but you see no blood.
A grave dug, and gladly lying within,
You forgot the promise of worms: too quick
To act, foolhardy, sad pantomime, you
Headstrong clown: infestation took over
Your mind. . .like everyone else. Show's over,
Everyone sees through you now. 

Come a victim, come a thief, come, you
With your hardness set into muscle
And bone like diamond into gold.

Come, you incubus, you dream lover:
Come as a wave over my lids, wet
Yet soft, rolling me over, under.

Permeate my body, come so hard
As to leave your mark. Pillage my home,
Rape me, and then kiss away my tears.

Burn down this house when you come; erect
A dwelling room for me inside you
Instead. A place where no distance comes. 

Nineteenth Century ejaculate
costing $14.50 round-trip
the train pulled out of the station
a bullet from a chamber
passing through the heart
on its way to Philly
      it ran like a fugitive
      on a 1950s TV
      in grayscale only
clips replay & become almost fiction
almost dream almost a bonfire in my crotch
threatening Mind, who knows better,
                  supposedly. I doubt that.
the      journey         just            began
but takes forever to come
all alcohol-soaked,      still sweaty
from the night-before, the bar, the palms
running over me in the shower
hot and needy and lathered
but still lingers the sweat
but still lingers your breath
      on my neck, on my back
      your tongue like a serpent
      crawls through my Gobi mouth
                  still. Believe me. I feel you.
      you probably think
      these words are about you
      don't you? you're right.
I tried to avoid reality.
I dreamed of the days
                  before before before, still.