poem of the day 12.23.15

a most wonderful time

they have christmas music

playing out of the computer

three hours of jingles on youtube

because it’s the most wonderful time of the year

unless someone is dropping drone bombs on your homeland

i must be the degenerate here

because i never understand it

they have music playing out of their cell phones

dueling symphonies of comfort and joy

and everyone is feigning happiness until december 26^th

until they can hate again freely

and talk their war talk and xenophobic glamour

everyone is wiggling in their seats

while i sit there begging to be struck down

by fat fucking santa’s sleigh

there is something lost in the translation for me

at this time of year

something they all have that i never got

like good looks and rich parents

maybe i’m worn down by living in perpetual war

tired of stepping over the homeless

on the way for a pound of meat

their ring tones play joyful and triumphant

and they say, turn that music up!

it heals them in some way

like a good stiff drink or three calms my savage beast

good god i wish this music was all it took

a little jingle bell rock to salvage the liver

and bring peace on earth

instead of the inevitable hangover and guilt

from the garbage and bodies piling up

like gifts underneath another browning tree

but here they are

singing feliz navidad with the passion of dylan zealots

like fucking aliens awaiting the deluge

and here i am

trying to keep the bile of another year ending

trapped up inside this sack of aging flesh

it’s all i can do to be in this room

and i can’t even do that well

so i get up and leave

go outside to stand in the warm yuletide rain

as assholes stuck at red lights wearing santa hats

honk their horns and call each other names

give the christmas middle finger to each other

with frosty the snowman

blaring out of their cars like rap bass in the summer

as wrapping paper roads

glimmer with the spectacle

of the climate change blues

and another newspaper headline

rolling in the breeze

tells me that someone else has died for their country

in afghanistan or on these very streets

for this glittering artifice

for this shit stain seasonal memory lapse

fa la la la la….la fucking la.