Christmas Poem
It’s in this cold stillness that I’ll unwrap my gift,
If the night still doesn’t feel like talking
The wind weaves through the trees, they sigh and they shift
As they wonder at its Christmas stalking
Here’s your card, but it’s hard to read, I lift
My lighter, and watch the lick of flame drift
And rise, and the message is shocking:
“There’s an emergency candle under the back seat
Between the maps and the bottle on the floor -
The bottle is empty.” I throw my gift to my feet
And burn through all my curse words once more
Until my anger freezes in the chill of defeat
As my fury cedes to the sound of the sleet
Softly tapping away at my door
Maybe it has come knocking to proselytize
For the thought that scrapes at my mind;
That to every summer a winter replies,
And it consumes the dreams of our kind
Until we bleed a god into empty skies
With passion, and love, and other lies
To smear over the coldness we find
It needs only tap gently. The candle is where
You said it would be, not to mention
You’ve emptied the bottle - but why return it? I swear,
You’ve got a funny idea of intervention
I’ll try not to get cross. I suppose, to be fair,
My car was addicted to gas, so we share
The burden of your good intention
I remove the tin lid from the candle, it’s got
A worn out holly and ivy design
On the label, which claims it’ll be ‘as bright and hot - ’
But it’s too faded to read the next line
I set the candle alight, and find it a spot
On the dashboard, wondering whether or not
I should open that present of mine
No, I resent it. I spend a cold hour waiting
For any glimpse of headlights up ahead
The candle reflects on the windshield, debating
That tonight, all the world is not dead
But the starless backdrop is silently slating
Its ephemeral dance - for its light isn’t sating
The endless darkness being fed
My boredom is the darkness, my spite is a flame;
In a few hours, boredom rules alone
That gift on the floor won’t stop calling my name
From the foot of your trickery’s throne
I find it, though it means playing your game;
I’m easy to toy with, if not to tame,
With the bait of the inner unknown
In the box is an envelope, and inside there’s a note
And some old photographs I recognize
‘To tear apart’ is all that you wrote;
Always one to melodramatise
The first photo is you in your little red coat
When we were both eight, how our parents would dote
On the little apple of their eyes
I ruined it later, at least, that’s what I seem to recall;
And we fought, and you cried, as you do
So this drive is just your little guilt trip, after all
Why does a coat still mean so much to you?
So I tear the photo - the shot’s yours to call.
But it seems, as I do, like I’m tearing the pall
Of my stale embarrassment and rue
Now the memory’s fading, I can just barely feel
The wisp of that thought anymore;
Now you once had a coat which I didn’t steal
And which I never damaged or tore,
And there were no wounds for my pride to heal,
And all that remains, and all that seems real,
Is a strange sense of warmth at my core
I stare at the candle, winding and winding
My mind around my bewildered heart
And I gaze until its brightness is blinding,
As if true darkness were only the art
Of true light, and the solace I’m finding
Is a lie composed by some truth for binding
Us by what we tear apart
I pick up the next photo, from some long years ago,
The last Christmas that you would remain
As my roommate. You called me a traitor, I know,
But how could you hope to explain
Your delusions of gifts, your posse in tow,
Like you were their Wenceslas out through the snow?
Of course I’d think you were insane
I tear it in two, and the feeling returns,
Stretching through me, seeking only to feed
My memories, my regrets, to the warmth that burns
Within me in its mirthful greed
Am I not now a traitor, as my mind unlearns
The price of that year? Who now discerns
Between fantasy and fanatic deed?
But I don’t care - if memory is my only judge,
And the judge is the offender on trial.
I see that dawn’s light is beginning its trudge,
But that jury’s still out for a while
I rip at more photos, and every rift, every grudge,
Every promise betrayed, all of history’s sludge,
Is melted away in your guile
And the warmth that I feel is a tricky reward,
As if I’d lived the life of another
But are the feelings and motives and tallies I horde
All but candles so easy to smother?
Or are they the darkness? Which is ignored,
Moments, or meaning? Can I afford
To believe I’d been a better brother?
There’s only one photo left - I didn’t know
You took a shot of me on our walk
Just after I arrived, I can’t blame you, though -
I took enough shots at you through our talk
And uncoiled your latest craze, and so
It began, as it seems always to go...
Our pattern runs its course by the clock
I stare at the photo a while, then I put it away
And watch the horizon glow like an ember
Maybe I’ll tear it up some other day,
Maybe some other, more biting December
But for now, I’d rather let it stay -
For how can I forgive, or ever repay
The debts that I don’t remember?
The candle’s still burning, as morning’s light glides
Over the world - it’s a startling vision
I may be your darkness, let the world pick its sides;
I’ve torn at its busy veneer with derision
And seen the cosmic loneliness which it hides,
And have torn at that veil, and beyond it resides
A love beyond the dream of division
If the night still doesn’t feel like talking
The wind weaves through the trees, they sigh and they shift
As they wonder at its Christmas stalking
Here’s your card, but it’s hard to read, I lift
My lighter, and watch the lick of flame drift
And rise, and the message is shocking:
“There’s an emergency candle under the back seat
Between the maps and the bottle on the floor -
The bottle is empty.” I throw my gift to my feet
And burn through all my curse words once more
Until my anger freezes in the chill of defeat
As my fury cedes to the sound of the sleet
Softly tapping away at my door
Maybe it has come knocking to proselytize
For the thought that scrapes at my mind;
That to every summer a winter replies,
And it consumes the dreams of our kind
Until we bleed a god into empty skies
With passion, and love, and other lies
To smear over the coldness we find
It needs only tap gently. The candle is where
You said it would be, not to mention
You’ve emptied the bottle - but why return it? I swear,
You’ve got a funny idea of intervention
I’ll try not to get cross. I suppose, to be fair,
My car was addicted to gas, so we share
The burden of your good intention
I remove the tin lid from the candle, it’s got
A worn out holly and ivy design
On the label, which claims it’ll be ‘as bright and hot - ’
But it’s too faded to read the next line
I set the candle alight, and find it a spot
On the dashboard, wondering whether or not
I should open that present of mine
No, I resent it. I spend a cold hour waiting
For any glimpse of headlights up ahead
The candle reflects on the windshield, debating
That tonight, all the world is not dead
But the starless backdrop is silently slating
Its ephemeral dance - for its light isn’t sating
The endless darkness being fed
My boredom is the darkness, my spite is a flame;
In a few hours, boredom rules alone
That gift on the floor won’t stop calling my name
From the foot of your trickery’s throne
I find it, though it means playing your game;
I’m easy to toy with, if not to tame,
With the bait of the inner unknown
In the box is an envelope, and inside there’s a note
And some old photographs I recognize
‘To tear apart’ is all that you wrote;
Always one to melodramatise
The first photo is you in your little red coat
When we were both eight, how our parents would dote
On the little apple of their eyes
I ruined it later, at least, that’s what I seem to recall;
And we fought, and you cried, as you do
So this drive is just your little guilt trip, after all
Why does a coat still mean so much to you?
So I tear the photo - the shot’s yours to call.
But it seems, as I do, like I’m tearing the pall
Of my stale embarrassment and rue
Now the memory’s fading, I can just barely feel
The wisp of that thought anymore;
Now you once had a coat which I didn’t steal
And which I never damaged or tore,
And there were no wounds for my pride to heal,
And all that remains, and all that seems real,
Is a strange sense of warmth at my core
I stare at the candle, winding and winding
My mind around my bewildered heart
And I gaze until its brightness is blinding,
As if true darkness were only the art
Of true light, and the solace I’m finding
Is a lie composed by some truth for binding
Us by what we tear apart
I pick up the next photo, from some long years ago,
The last Christmas that you would remain
As my roommate. You called me a traitor, I know,
But how could you hope to explain
Your delusions of gifts, your posse in tow,
Like you were their Wenceslas out through the snow?
Of course I’d think you were insane
I tear it in two, and the feeling returns,
Stretching through me, seeking only to feed
My memories, my regrets, to the warmth that burns
Within me in its mirthful greed
Am I not now a traitor, as my mind unlearns
The price of that year? Who now discerns
Between fantasy and fanatic deed?
But I don’t care - if memory is my only judge,
And the judge is the offender on trial.
I see that dawn’s light is beginning its trudge,
But that jury’s still out for a while
I rip at more photos, and every rift, every grudge,
Every promise betrayed, all of history’s sludge,
Is melted away in your guile
And the warmth that I feel is a tricky reward,
As if I’d lived the life of another
But are the feelings and motives and tallies I horde
All but candles so easy to smother?
Or are they the darkness? Which is ignored,
Moments, or meaning? Can I afford
To believe I’d been a better brother?
There’s only one photo left - I didn’t know
You took a shot of me on our walk
Just after I arrived, I can’t blame you, though -
I took enough shots at you through our talk
And uncoiled your latest craze, and so
It began, as it seems always to go...
Our pattern runs its course by the clock
I stare at the photo a while, then I put it away
And watch the horizon glow like an ember
Maybe I’ll tear it up some other day,
Maybe some other, more biting December
But for now, I’d rather let it stay -
For how can I forgive, or ever repay
The debts that I don’t remember?
The candle’s still burning, as morning’s light glides
Over the world - it’s a startling vision
I may be your darkness, let the world pick its sides;
I’ve torn at its busy veneer with derision
And seen the cosmic loneliness which it hides,
And have torn at that veil, and beyond it resides
A love beyond the dream of division