My Seventh Christmas
The same decorations look different,
again, this year.
The hollow Saint Nick
that lights up,
the one much beloved
by neighborhood kids
(their noses collectively smushed
against the backseat windows
of a minivan or family sedan)
appears to me to be besmudged
with coal-dust.
I wipe it down nightly
in the December cold
but it never quite glows
as pure as it once did
eight or more years ago.
(I’m sober, now
and a hopeless workaholic)
There’s nineteen days ’til January.
Our artificial tree
is already brittle and dry,
ready to be engulfed in flames
if I don’t water it daily.
And as I play the part
of a jovial family-man,
I think often on that quote
by Dorothy Parker:
“I hate writing,
I love having written.”
And I often twist it like garland
around the stockings neatly hung
until I find myself, in essence, repeating:
“I love drinking,
I hate having drunken.”
And this dark angel
taunts me hardest with her carols
at this most “wonderful
time of the year.”
The Wind Gibbers with Their Voices
In smells of death
(Autumnal air),
no bated breath
shall dare inter
the old ones’ hallowed curse
upon the knells
which mimic growls
of necromancers’
hellish hounds.
As for the thoughts thought too profound
for phallic shrines
or obelisks,
gods leave such thoughts
to goddesses
until the equinox
has come,
and musing winds
have blown.
“And with strange aeons
even death may die.”
Jaco Pastorius (1951-1987)
“I’m John Francis Pastorius III. I’m the greatest bass player in the world.” -Jaco Pastorius
before you
no one had ever heard
[mellow mid-range moaning
harmonic whistling from]
a bass sing
so lyric’ly
showboating fingers maneuvering
across a fretless Fender J
plucking strumming
tapping pinching slapping
funked-up jazz hypomanic anthems
calculus-booms
of doom
shattering
glass ceilings