Nuptials Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

Occasionally I am impressed – it
doesn’t mean I can be bought
by tawdriness which scoops the
cream too easily yet today I saw
evidence where men who usually
ignore ceremony were bound by
its circumstance

The scene; a campfire of durable
lineage in the middle of the day
and four men. I knew from the
previous evening’s debris there’s
no escape – littered wine bottles
some nearly empty kept counsel
in ritual silence

The beer we drank excused why
we were there and the Marquee
for Saturday’s wedding said it
more eloquently; I guessed your
company is somewhat sullied by
the event of a daughter’s nuptials
I say ingenuously

Yeah sure – but the bugger’s this
fire, it’s too hard to invent another
way of everyone seeing where we
are at, like it’s a traditional tract
that says ‘gather round and look
at me you tossers, this is the only
thing that matters’
© 21 October 2009, I. D. Carswell