Christmas Memories #2 (Some DU poets)

Sodom & Gomorrah 2022
 
The world halted on its axis turning clockwise
Non-wiser than the moon, the sun, the stars
Underbelly of fools’ gold in clouds of stardust.
Angels sang off key humming broken melodies
Children watched demons dancing on streets
Art of indifference embedded beneath the skin.
We fell on knees, praying to God’s deaf ears
Faith to faithless snaking between jagged teeth  
Cries of a newborn cleansing mortal sins.
O’ Star of Bethlehem,  
Guide shepherds and kings, jesters and sheep
The road to salvation is long, narrow and  
Gates of heaven bolted with steel.
 
Trimming The Tree-- 1970's
 
Dad used to trim the tree, alright-- with a chainsaw.
We always trudged out on the worst weather day, to buy the ugliest tree there was.
My brother, sister and I, held the trunk, steady, laughing,
while Dad sawed off branches, drilled holes
and superglued them into their new places
along the trunk.
 
I asked him, years later, why such a production?
He replied "Because it wouldn't have been any fun, if the weather and tree were perfect ."
Perhaps, much of life could be summed up as such, but we still find a way to laugh about it, eventually.
 
Cookies for Breakfast
 
Insomnia steals her focus
the whole of December ~
three long weeks this time.
 
Tired, she makes her way
to our trailer’s tiny kitchen,  
baking her almond spritz cookies
and carefully twisting leftover dough
into puffy candy cane shapes.
 
I steal my gift from her that year
and learn how to make the best of it.
 
Plucked Chicken
 
Christmas week spent at granny's house
meant fried chicken the first night.
She picked a slow, fat one from the yard
and stroked it's head to calm it down
as she walked towards the chopping block.
 
She snapped its neck before she got there,
without even missing a step.
She then told me that I had to pluck it myself
if I wanted to eat it that night.
I apologized to it, as I pulled its feathers off.
 
I already can't wait for next Christmas,
maybe I'll be old enough to do the killing
and someone else can pluck.
 
Christmas Past
 
Those were heady, evocative times;
ensconced in a large, predominantly-female, matriarchal family,
on occasion, I'd spend Christmas in one house with all of them.
There were plenteous preparations to partake in;
endless chatter, raucous laughter, joyous games.
I loved it all, though usually from my favourite position:
having taken part, I'd invariably find myself curled up in a corner somewhere
with the latest Records book, fun facts or mind puzzles.
While others joked and laughed and played,
I'd frantically try to drink in the atmosphere and somehow preserve it.
So, I'd capture these memories with a borrowed camcorder,
my Canon camera, my pen and my heart.
I still curl up in the corner. And I still see it all.
 
Christmas Lights
 
How beautiful Christmas Lights are
When I watched them twinkle
From inside my parents car
Driving by homes decorated
Everything perfectly illuminated
In awe of the colorful glow
Each house a different show
As I would sip on my hot cocoa
Such warm Xmas memories
From so many years ago
 
the last normal xmas
 
My favourite xmas memory
all the adults in my family under 40
got stoned and played monopoly
 
The cookies crept up slowly
until we were giggling over nothing
and suddenly bad at math
 
It was the last xmas my little brother was normal
before conspiracy theories and drugs rewired his brain
and made him someone else
 
Ruckus at Dawn
 
We would all sleep in the same room on Christmas Eve.
Morning found us bright eyed and impatient
crammed in the bathroom (because the wall bordered their room)
Brother with his trumpet, sister with her sax,
little K playing percussion on the pots & pans.
 
It was years before I appreciated
how long they let us burn off steam
as they slept off late-night wrapping and eggnog.
Not until coffee kicked in could mom muster the gleam in her eye
and open the door whispering, “he came!”
 
A Drunks Christmas in Wales
(with apologies to Dylan Thomas)
 
Vodka glass’ed stragglers
Nest on tongue as ex-lovers,
Lipstick priests offer unholy kisses
Confessions spill as beer on feculent carpets.
 
In the bleak town midwinter
Bark! The dogs dressed as angels,
Three drunks follow flickering street light
To a stable with no money for heat.