House Cleaning on Boxing Day

 —Poetry by Lynn White, 

Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales 

—Visuals Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

NATIVITY


There are no Magi to adore them now,
the women giving birth
in ramshackle sheds
or freezing tents
or in the rubble
and cold
and dirt
of what’s left.

There are no Magi to bring gifts,
no shepherds to bring succour
to the women giving birth
in ramshackle sheds
or freezing tents
or in the rubble
and cold
and dirt
of what’s left.

Maybe artists will paint the scene
but I doubt it.
None are needed
when we can already see,
when we already know
and then we don’t see
anymore.



(First published in New Verse News, March 2, 2024)

 

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS CHEERS

They placed the presents
carefully wrapped
in bright paper
beneath the evergreen branches
decorated with shiny baubles.
All was ready now
in this house,
the last house
for Santa
for another year.
He raised his glass of sherry
and toasted his hard-working elves
whilst the reindeers waited impatiently
nibbling the undecorated branches outside.
No one noticed the shadows they cast.

 

(First published in Danse Macabre, December 2022)

 

 

 

 



THE KILLING HOLIDAY


Genocide Joe
is strutting
his stuff
getting ready
to deliver
for Christmas.

Santa came early
to the north, as he does
and now his sack’s laden
and he’s moving south
playing toy soldiers
with real missiles and bombs.

For children alone
and families fleeing terror
the bombs make a carpet
of what once were homes.
The tanks crush out lives
there’s no where to go,
no where to hide
for the starved
and the maimed
they’ll remember this Christmas
from Genocide Joe.

Armed to the gums
their neighbours afraid
helpless and hating
and hate breeding hate
and more hate breeds power
for the fear of today is the might of tomorrow.
Some history is made by these Santas of War
and more history is made by new Masters of War
and both the living and dead will judge Genocide Joe.



(First published in Brave and Reckless, 2023)

 

 

 

 

SO MANY THINGS


What would you like for Christmas?
It’s a problem to decide
what to buy for the one who has everything!

There’s a birthday coming up,
what would you like?
It’s a problem to decide
what to buy for the one who has everything!

But now even our special things
are taking us over
growing like triffids
and suffocating us
spewing from our homes,
first to fill plastic bags
and then the land,
the seas,
the air
we breathe.

Too many things.
It’s all too much.



(First published in Oddball, December 22, 2021)

 

 

 

 

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS TO COME


The ghost slid down the rabbit hole
on a dark wintery night.
He expected to arrive in Wonderland
if such a place exists
and he believed it did,
just as he believed in ghosts and Santa Claus.
It was as he expected.
There was a full glass on a table.
He looked for a label saying:
“Drink Me”.
But there was no label.
So he drank it anyway.
It left a nice warm feeling inside him,
“spirit for the spirit”, he laughed aloud.
There was a plate of pastries.
He looked for a label saying:
“Eat Me”,
but there was no label.
So he ate them anyway,
all of them
every last crumb,
every succulent morsel of mincemeat.
He lay back contentedly
then smiled somewhat sheepishly
at the old man dressed in red carrying a large sack
who must have followed him down the rabbit hole.
He was looking none too pleased at the scene.
“Well”, said the ghost,
“Anyone can mistake a chimney for a rabbit hole
and we need a new Christmas story.”

(First published in Oddball, December 2019)

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE 26th OF DECEMBER
—Galway Kinnell (1927-2014)

A Tuesday, day of Tiw,
god of war, dawns in darkness.
The short holiday day of talking by the fire,
floating on snowshoes among
ancient self-pollarded maples,
visiting, being visited, giving
a rain gauge, receiving red socks,
watching snow buntings nearly over
their heads in snow stab at spirtled bits
of sunflower seeds the chickadees
hold with their feet to a bough
and hack apart, scattering debris
like sloppy butchers, is over.
Irregular life begins. Telephone calls,
Google searches, evasive letters,
complicated arrangements, faxes,
second thoughts, consultations,
e-mails, solemnly given kisses.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Lynn White for today’s fine post-Christmas fare! (And a Happy Boxing Day to our UK poets, too!) Our Seed of the Week is "Out of Control". As Lynn says, "Too many things. It's all too much..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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