They’re Ravin’ (Poetry Form Thirteen: Trochaic Octameter)

As it’s day 13, I thought something a bit macabre would be good, so here is a riff on Poe’s The Raven, which is written in Trochaic Octameter.

It was in the early morning, when the day was barely dawning
I was half asleep and yawning with my lady by my side
With the breakfast news on telly, tea and toast to fill my belly
And a kitten, rather smelly, sable furred and golden eyed.
We were waking up together, watching comment, news and weather
And the cat was batting feathers with a vicious velvet paw
When a man of haughty carriage, in a voice enraged and savage
Shouted “legalize gay marriage in this country? nevermore!”
I looked over at my lover (who had stolen all the cover)
And my hand began to hover over our remote control.
Turned it off, logged in to Twitter for a meme to make us titter
So the day would not get shitter. (We find lolcats rather droll.)
But instead we found petitions from the folks in our position
‘Cross the pond, all on a mission to secure their marriage rights
Where the state by state campaigning really must be rather draining
So we shouldn’t be complaining: over here we got off light.
We’ve a partnership, it’s civil, Oh, and yet it seems to shrivel
As the law says “you can swivel if you want equality,
“You can love each other, certain!
But we have to draw the curtain
If you homo rights are hurting those of the majority!
For you threaten our traditions: same sex marriage is sedition
And you can’t defeat our mission your ideals to ignore”
Though we’d love co-operation they believe we’re for damnation,
Hope to offer us salvation, but accept us? nevermore!
As we’re liberal, bright and arty the American tea party’s
If you ask us, pretty farty, for the air in there is stale
Though we’re scrabbling and snatching, many kinds of plots we’re hatching
But the door they’re always latching: as they hope that we will fail!
As a transatlantic pairing, nationality we’re sharing
As the UK is more caring: over here we both can stay,
But my darling wife’s a Yankee and her country said “no thank’ee”
Which we think is rather wanky, for we’d emigrate one day,
If the GOP and clerics would just stop having hysterics
For our needs are quite generic, so just listen: we implore
We’re not trying to be clever we just want to be together
Wife and wife, you see, forever, yes, forever, evermore!