CONTRATHALAMION
As you can see, this was written for the wedding of two friends in 2008. I performed it at the ceremony, complete with feigned confusion and shuffling of notes.
The poem takes the form of a double sonnet, with the first line playing on that of Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXVI – a popular choice for reading at weddings. An ‘epithalamion’ was a poem written to celebrate a marriage: the title of this piece is supposed to suggest a more cynical variant.
CONTRATHALAMION
To Silk and Kate, with love
on the happy occasion of their wedding –
Sunday 4 May 2008.
Let not the marriage of true minds –
but you’ve heard that one. Let me talk
instead about the many kinds
of daily strife which make it awk-
ward to stay married, once those first
impediments are past. I’ve made
a list of those I find the worst.
My wife... helped. First – the marmalade.
No, hang on, that’s page 2. Let’s see...
You may find things that you yourself
put somewhere safe will later be
somewhere absurd, like on the shelf
where mug-trees live. Unless, you know,
they’re mug-trees, and that’s where they go.
Toenail clippings, rather than
the bin, might turn up in your bed,
your trousers, or your frying-pan.
A book that should be under Z
in fiction – a Zelazny, say –
you’ll find instead is in the car,
the bath, the fridge, or under J.
You’ll wonder where your pliers are,
and as for DVD remotes –
I’m ranting now. Perhaps it’s best
if I just give you all my notes,
and spare these charming folk the rest.
(You may think I’m exaggerating.
See what you think in 2018.)
© Philip Purser-Hallard 2008.
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