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| A bauble, earlier today. |
I've posted this before but it is, as far as I can work out, my only viable Christmas poem.
OK, like
Down time this is also in part a solstice poem, but it references enough Christmas paraphernalia to be acceptable.
As you may have gathered, it isn't the religious aspects of the season that matter to me. It's the overall celebration of family and friendship and broad-spectrum humanity in general.
So happy festival-of-choice to all you broad humans out there!
Bottom dead centre
Intake
Ice-path uncles, sliding, come
to top-up stockings, sip sherry,
be knocked unconscious by the Queen.
The old year has been dripping
through the cracks in December,
now only one festival remains.
Compression
Fewer and smaller,
the uncles left for us to visit
dribbling in their rest-homes.
What troupe remains to get festive?
To turn up, unexpected? To decorate the tree
and give you socks?
Combustion
I give you socks
to wear outside your boots
wending from the crematorium
with the path caked in icing, decoration
a drain-pipe dribbled through its crack.
We spontaneously scatter Uncle Clive.
Exhaust
All the uncles scattered once,
when you aced and raced the new sled
of younger years. Now the pagan tree
is baubed with tears, as you tear the ribbon-paper.
Another pair of socks—useful. At our age
the ritual differs. The engine hesitates,
one year unsafely dead, and drawing-in
one drawn-out breath we wait
to long-live the new.
Also, as a festive treat, I've fixed the Search Box, somewhere up and to the right.
This box has been broken since the day I created the blog, so a certain lack of function has become traditional, but I've broken the tradition of respecting traditions and fixed the works up with a bent paper-clip, a nail and some sunflower seeds (don't ask).
So, if you've long harboured a pressing desire to know how many time I say "atom" (once) or "time" (all the time) now's your big moment.
Happy Christmas one and all.
Ian
