Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Love Under The Democrats (Sorry, Ogden, but you are dead)

Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Of a sugar-free wedding cake
And champagne toasts just as fake

Change will be the maid of honor,
A host of hopes lain upon her;
New ideas strewn before the altar,
Rings of dreams, our gilded halter;

And as we march back down the aisle,
With silken rose and painted smile,
I'll swear to be forever true.
Unspecifically, I do.

Ere our lives one day turn soury
We'll reach inside your fading dowry,
To pay for that audacious boon,
A honeyed, moon-eyed honeymoon.

Each morning through our life together,
Though fantasies change with the weather,
I hope to find, at breakfast, cereal.
Not every meal can be ethereal.

CONVENTION, n.  An assembly of conventions.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very apt. Puts me in mind of Doonesbury, where Walden was offering an incredibly popular course, "The Poetry of Barack Obama." Those who couldn't get in had to take "The Prose of Hilary Clinton."
We'll see what the poetry looks like the morning after.

Anonymous said...

An assembly of conventions? Ack! If there's such a thing as an "eyeworm", then I have one: the view of a mirror as seen in a mirror, with telescoping images of itself and whatever's in it going on and on forever ...

Mind you, if you can get away with rhyming "love" and "prove" (I dinna ken ye spracke broad Scots), I can get away with this:

If the opposite of "con" is "pro", what is the opposite of "convention"?

Prevention!

;)

Jim said...

Conventions: I don't want to get to political, but ... , I had already signed up for "The Prose of Hilary Clinton." Now that course has been canceled so that I am forced to wait and later register for "Rhetoric of John McCain in 2012."
Except due to aging of Prof. McCain it will be taught by a substitute lecturer who will lead all us students down the primrose path for four agonizing years again.
After that in 2016 "The Prose of Hilary Clinton" will be an obsolete course and we will have another dilema like we have in the year of 2008.
For sure we will never close the University, I may have to come out of retirement and teach those courses, which ever, using my syllabus.

Convention: ___________________
..

Unknown said...

Being dead has not stopped my co-author from writing, but I suppose not everyone can be as prolific, or find someone semi-living who's strange enough to work with them.

Great poem!

Janell said...

Oh, this is just TOO good! Makes me wish "I'd said that!"

Jamie Dawn said...

Convention: a gathering for the supposedly, but not always like minded.

Terrific poem!

Doug The Una said...

Weirsdo, do you think he'd settle for a Pulitzer?

Amoeba, blame Christopher Marlowe for rhyming love and prove, Robert Browning, Ogden Nash and my beagle to follow. Do you think we should speak of The Democratic Conphylactic?

Jim, you should be out of retirement already. There's larnin' to be did.

Lily, I think that's it. Too many dead, not enough weird.

Thanks, Janelle.

TLP said...

Convention: the opposite of invention.

Great stuff today Doug. I hate the conventions. You make them sound half-interesting.

Doug The Una said...

TLP, I should be hanged for that.

javajazz said...

oh! Ogden Nash,
the only poet
i ever loved as a child...!
especially because
he made up words,
(like elephone).

ps..
who says cereal
ain't ethereal?

Anonymous said...

Convention: Delude one part ordinary party in ten parts extraordinary repartee. Stir, shake, drain completely before drinking.

(Brilliant Gnash-oid today, Dougie.)

Anonymous said...

CON-VENTION n.

If I have to explain, you aren't as bright as I think you are.

TLP said...

LOL Quilly.

Doug The Una said...

Actonbell, I agree this year's convention has been innovative in its triteness.

JJ, I understand completely, although I think "elephone" was coined by Laura Richards. But Nash invented "nectacled" which is plenty good enough for me. (I would not have known about "elephone" except Harris' fans have been here 'erenow.

And a brilliant definition, Al, old buddy.

And less criminal, too, Quilly.

TLP, Quilly got a new job yesterday. Careful you don't over-encourage her for OC's sake.

javajazz said...

oh my,
see how well i know
the only poet i loved
as a child?
i would have gone
my entire life
thinking that was
an Ogden Nash poem...
i have never even heard
of Laura Richards
and yet i had memorized
that entire poem
Eletelephony
thinking it was Nash's...
how embarrassing...
i'll never make it
as an academic...
my mind is mush...
(blush).

Doug The Una said...

JJ, you don't know how I fretted over whether to bring that up, and if it helps, I think Puppybrose posted that poem and I thought it was Nash at the time.

javajazz said...

"Dear me I am not certain quite
that even now I've got it right..."

ya, but the way you bring things up
is always kindly no matter
if you're the brainiac-est
human i know,
your way of guiding others to
new and interesting bits of knowledge
is always with
a gentle kindness and humility...
and i'll take "nectacled"
as an even exchange
for all the insecurity
that only i brought upon myself...
besides, i never would have known
of Laura Richards
were it not for you...
(and Puppybrose!)

Doug The Una said...

JJ, you are a positive poet.