NOEL

Outside my window
The church bells chime The First Noel
Incessantly and monotonously
Their sound is empty and hollow
Like this room

Today I walked
The crippled and cracked streets
Passed the other rooming houses
Similar to mine
But different in their own agonies

And always those bells
Bouncing off the boarded up windows
Refracting off the shattered glass
Hovering over the gutter
Bringing joy to the world

Joy that dies upon the sidewalks edge
Joy that finds no quarter in the rooms of desperate men
Joy that finds only the joyless
Whose only joy is four walls
And waking up to cheap wine
And a stale cigarette

When the bells cease
And their faint echo sits in the air
I look out my filthy window
There is no peace on earth
Or goodwill towards men
And the silent night
Is all too silent in its silent desperation.