dc’s 6th annual xmas poetry scroll: ashbery, notley, britton, green, tate, koestenbaum, denby, christie, gallup, berrigan, armantrout, crawford, spicer, padgett, mirov, boyle, creeley, merrill, gluck, wieners, killian, partrik, salier, schuyler, koertge, zephaniah, lin, myles, o’hara, eknoian, madsen, trinidad, young, berkson, brainard, coolidge, bukowski, gerstler

 

 

 

Redeemed Area
by John Ashbery

Do you know where you live? Probably.

Abner is getting too old to drive but won’t admit it.

The other day he got in his car to go buy some cough drops

of a kind they don’t make anymore. And the drugstore

has been incorporated into a mall about seven miles away

with only about half the stores rented. There are three

other malls within a four-mile area. All the houses

are owned by the same guy, who’s been renting

them out to college students for years, so they are virtually uninhabitable.

A smell of vitriol and socks pervades the area

like an open sewer in a souk. Anyway the cough drops

(a new brand) tasted pretty good-like catnip

or an orange slice that has lain on a girl’s behind.

That’s the electrician calling now

nobody else would call before 7 A.M. Now we’ll have some

electricity in the place. I’ll start by plugging in

the Christmas tree lights. They were what made the whole thing

go up in sparks the last time. Next, the light

by the dictionary stand, so I can look some words up.

Then probably the toaster. A nice slice

of toast would really hit the spot now. I’m afraid it’s all over

between us, though. Make nice, like you really cared,

I’ll change my chemise, and we can dance around the room

like demented dogs, eager for a handout or they don’t

know what. Gradually, everything will return to normal, I

promise you that. There’ll be things for you to write about

in your diary, a fur coat for me, a lavish shoe tree for that other.

Make that two slices. I can see you only through a vegetal murk

not unlike coral, if it were semi-liquid, or a transparent milkshake.

I have adjusted the lamp;

morning’s at seven,

the tarnish has fallen from the metallic embroidery, the walls have fallen,

the country’s pulse is racing. Parents are weeping,

the schools have closed.

All the fuss has put me in a good mood,

O great sun.

 

It Is Like a Christmas Card
by Alice Notley

It is like a Christmas card,
except it is real and I
am seeng it, and it is far
more beautiful than any pic-
ture, if it is real.

 

Santa
by Donald Britton

Santa is the incomplete
Embodiment of our charity. Poor Santa,
His many bodies minted
Of human waste, his voice the choir
Of his own need. I feel so empty,
By myself, whispering my lists
In Santa’s spiral ear, while he lists
Slightly to one side like skeet
Propelled into the air by a device
No human hand has touched, so obsolete
Is effort when a dime skims ice.
Emit a cry for every useless thing:
Abundant padding so contrived
No one of us shall feel deprived.

 

Ranting
by Megan Green

ranting, pathetic insecurities, overwhelm the Christmas tree, and you promise
me a utopia, a sort of subsequential America,
where we’ll fuck & eat & play the craps, Las
Vegas is the only place it’ll happen, &
yet the nameless, intrude like a swarm of fucking locusts
feasting upon the Satin drape of my finest
face, I believe your chest most of all, that’s where
the dragon begins, & the sigh
spills from my eyes. Dead petals favour the corners. Gathering
like they have plans.

 

Making the Best of the Holidays
by James Tate

Justine called on Christmas day to say she
was thinking of killing herself. I said, “We’re
in the middle of opening presents, Justine. Could
you possibly call back later, that is, if you’re
still alive.” She was furious with me and called
me all sorts of names which I refuse to dignify
by repeating them. I hung up on her and returned
to the joyful task of opening presents. Everyone
seemed delighted with what they got, and that
definitely included me. I placed a few more logs
on the fire, and then the phone rang again. This
time it was Hugh and he had just taken all of his
pills and washed them down with a quart of gin.
“Sleep it off, Hugh,” I said, “I can barely under-
stand you, you’re slurring so badly. Call me
tomorrow, Hugh, and Merry Christmas.” The roast
in the oven smelled delicious. The kids were playing
with their new toys. Loni was giving me a big
Christmas kiss when the phone rang again. It was
Debbie. “I hate you,” she said. “You’re the most
disgusting human being on the planet.” “You’re
absolutely right,” I said, “and I’ve always been
aware of this. Nonetheless, Merry Christmas, Debbie.”
Halfway through dinner the phone rang again, but
this time Loni answered it. When she came back
to the table she looked pale. “Who was it?” I
asked. “It was my mother,” she said. “And what
did she say?” I asked. “She said she wasn’t my
mother,” she said.

 

[older I get]
by Wayne Koestenbaum

older I get, more serious I become
—-about wearing
—-makeup and wig.
caftan, too. always interested in a rub, kind sir:
—-love yr eyebrows.
—-admittedly, my pix
—-disguise age.
mix turquoise, king’s blue, bluish purple: impose mix
—-on passive quinacridone
—-violet’s impersonality.
try to figure out how clearly delineated
—-“subject positions” find
—-angles of mutual
—-pleasurable engagement without
—-destroying each other.

Joan Rivers baking Xmas cookies seen sideways
—-through tunnel window’s
—-mirror lake Simi-
—-lac® simulacrum.
“this administration is the worst thing to happen
—-to orange since
—-Agent Orange,” quips pundit.
every novel I love is fragile. red stars
—-on black duffel bag
—-triangulate with
—-Lynn Redgrave’s in-
—-dependent sources of self-
—-esteem, not harvested from Lear.
wrongly seeking sublimity in barn-roof gutter crevice.

lucent ceiling corrugations a dauphinois
—-potato when his Pompeii
—-gaze claims me, then disappears.
kouros-carved lips, stone lingerie, scandal
—-pudding: congregated
—-shames comprise a menu.
hives on my calves, awaiting Purim-Benadryl’s
—-alleviation: sob-collapse
—-throws ash on coffin
—-lowered: crowded town
—-car back from cemetery
—-to capers, cream cheese.

abstract expressionism is what happened at the hospital:
—-fools disputing climate
—-change, Tiffany
—-blue establishing shot’s
—-concentrated inattention.
“I’m glad you gave up the figure,” she said:
—-but I haven’t
—-stopped pursuing nudes.
to be the dread golem, aloof in Prague, boning
—-up on feuilletonisme,
—-Eton pea-coat toggles
—-unclasping gelt-Jocasta.

 

Sonnet 8
by Edwin Denby

Three old sheepherders so filthy in their ways
Whores wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole
Saw once the Christmas star which in a blaze
Pierced like delight into the secret soul.

They later also stood with their same faces
Around a baby male and there were shown
The heart caressing with millennial graces
A beauty which in love is all its own.

These three were the first according to the story
But unbaptized they never will reach heaven
In an eternal hell tortured and gory
They can recall the joy that they were given,

This savage torture by the law of love
Of Christmas shepherds I like thinking of.

 

 

I’ll Be Me and You Be Goethe
by Heather Christie

I want it to be winter and I want to change
the color of this room This room should be
a blue room and it should be freezing
but ventilated and I in my medium snowsuit
irresistible I know because everything I do
I do to get more beautiful so you will want
to love me in the cold and indoor morning

 

Christmas Poem
by Dick Gallup

Your eyes give a little bit
—————-You know
Though your hands
Take you away
Into a distance filling with blue fir trees
Cool and fragrant as the sea
Vacationing in an upland meadow
You have a magical green necklace
When You put it on you are like a tree

Today I call you Lady Santa
From your firm green breasts
Spring Christmas Tree nipples!
Lady Santa!
I call your name wildly in the night
You are the one who brings Fortune to poets
You fill the kids’ stockings
You are the ink in my pen
The yeast in my bread
The best in my bed
You have a giant living room
And you don’t even have a house
I’m going to call you on the telephone
I’m going to call you on a real telephone

When you go away
—–It’s time for the horror show
Time to hang around weird scenes
Time to fuck up the machinery
—–Like big hairy factories
I end up making smoke
And finally going out
—–On strike
And you are the most beautiful of the scabs
And put me back to just walking down the street

There is a blue fire in the wheels of your eyes
Deep blue flaming night lights
You hold comfort and easy dreams
No leaky faucets in your kitchen
You give me screaming fits of sheer adulation
You come toward me on the winter streets
—–Ringing your bell
And you are all the bells ringing
Christmas and New Years in a clean shirt
You make me think of padded cells on the moon
And going to the Excelsior Hotel
—–In Venice
————–In a balloon
You are a goddess on a god’s birthday
Your voice is on the radio when I turn it off
You are your own electricity
And you turn me on

 

What I’d Like For Christmas, 1970
by Ted Berrigan

Black brothers to get happy
The Puerto Ricans to say hello
The old folks to take it easy &
as it comes
The United States to get straight
Power to butt out
Money to fuck off
Business with honor
Religion
& Art
Love
A home
A typewriter
A GUN.

 

Advent
by Rae Armantrout

In front of the craft shop,
a small nativity,
mother, baby, sheep
made of white
and blue balloons.

*

Sky
god
girl.

Pick out the one
that doesn’t belong.

*

Some thing

close to nothing
flat
from which,

fatherless,
everything has come.

 

Look at My Head, It’s a Pumpkin with a Candle in It
by Keegan Crawford

What is on your bed right now?
I laid there for fifteen minutes with my face down into the pillow.
I imagined how I looked from another person’s point of view
and I looked dead, in a humorous way.
What is your favorite holiday?
The tree was fake and everyone was acting like the tree.
If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
The drop was five stories, so I didn’t look down. I just looked forward.
Have you ever been camping?
I don’t know why people are scared of wolves. ‘Blood thirsty killing machine’ is a false phrase. They are not robots and they drink water.
What was the last thing you ate?
I am not a blood thirsty killing machine. I just wanted to clarify that.
Do you have any regrets?
Flowers die 100% percent of the time. I still like flowers, though.

 

Psychoanalysis: An Elegy (Excerpt)
by Jack Spicer

I think that I would like to write a poem that is slow as a summer
As slow getting started
As 4th of July somewhere around the middle of the second stanza
After a lot of unusual rain
California seems long in the summer.
I would like to write a poem as long as California
And as slow as a summer.
Do you get me, Doctor? It would have to be as slow
As the very tip of summer.
As slow as the summer seems
On a hot day drinking beer outside Riverside
Or standing in the middle of a white-hot road
Between Bakersfield and Hell
Waiting for Santa Claus.

 

 

Season’s Greetings
by Ron Padgett

The holidays are said
to give one a chance
to get in touch with others
but what held back that chance
the rest of the year?
What it means is
that the holidays are a time
when we should behave
like other people, as if
in junior high school,
jury duty, or the Army,
whereas what Philip Whalen
wanted was to take a holiday
from holidays, and then
he wavered, beautifully.

 

Kage’s First Xmas
by Ben Mirov

I am thinking of him and her having sex. I am thinking of them having really great sex, probably in front of a mirror. I am alone in the house. The TV is on, but everyone is asleep. I am about to turn twenty-one. When I turn twenty-one I am going to put on snowshoes. I am going to put on snowshoes and walk as far as I can into the snow. Once I am out in the snow I am going to sit down. I will probably sit in the snow for a long time. I’ll bring a sandwich and some juice. When I return to the house it will be Xmas morning. I will take off my snowshoes and I will tell my family my new name. I will say, On advent of my twenty-first birthday I have taken a new name. Henceforth I shall be called Kage. Kage with a K and not a C. From now on I will only answer to the name Kage. Thank you very much, and then I will walk out of the room. Then I will probably take a shower because I will be cold from sitting in the snow. I will walk into the bathroom and take off all my clothes and look at my body in the mirror. I will probably flex a little. Kage likes his new body. Then I will take a long shower. I will wash every part of my body, including my asshole and my ears and toes. Every part of my body will be clean. Then I will get out of the shower and go have Xmas. I will open my presents and say, Kage does not want this. Kage has no use for a Playstation. Kage does wear sweaters.

 

untitled
by Megan Boyle

everything i touch is going to be a fossil some day my dad still hasn’t taken down his christmas decorations

i walked to his refrigerator and immediately unwrapped and ate a square of american cheese

if i drop a toothpick i’m pretty sure it will remain where it fell for three days

not sure what happens after that.

 

Xmas Poem: Bolinas
by Robert Creeley

All around
the snow
don’t fall.

Come Christmas
we’ll get high
and go find it.

 

Christmas Tree
by James Merrill

To be
Brought down at last
From the cold sighing mountain
Where I and the others
Had been fed, looked after, kept still,
Meant, I knew—of course I knew—
That it would be only a matter of weeks,
That there was nothing more to do.
Warmly they took me in, made much of me,
The point from the start was to keep my spirits up.
I could assent to that. For honestly,
It did help to be wound in jewels, to send
Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep
Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot.
Over me then they wove a spell of shining—
Purple and silver chains, eavesdropping tinsel,
Amulets, milagros: software of silver,
A heart, a little girl, a Model T,
Two staring eyes. Then angles, trumpets, BUD and BEA
(The children’s names) in clownlike capitals,
Somewhere a music box whose tiny song
Played and replayed I ended before long
By loving. And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV
To keep the show going. Yes, yes, what lay ahead
Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals
Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come—
No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn’t bear,
Now or ever, dwelling upon. To have grown so thin.
Needles and bone. The little boy’s hands meeting
About my spine. The mother’s voice: Holding up wonderfully!
No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today’s
Dusk room aglow
For the last time
With candlelight.
Faces love-lit
Gifts underfoot.
Still to be so poised, so
Receptive. Still to recall, praise.

 

Love Poem
by Louise Glück

There is always something to be made of pain.
Your mother knits.
She turns out scarves in every shade of red.
They were for Christmas, and they kept you warm
while she married over and over, taking you
along. How could it work,
when all those years she stored her widowed heart
as though the dead come back.
No wonder you are the way you are,
afraid of blood, your women
like one brick wall after another.

 

THE BLIND SEE ONLY THIS WORLD (A Christmas Card)
by John Wieners

Today the Lamb of God arrives in the mail
above the Cross, beside the Handsome Sailor
from Russia
in his turtleneck sweater. Today we make love
in our minds.
And women come to fore, winning the field.

It is Christmas, Hanukkah,–heritages we leave
behind
in israel.

There is a new cross in the wind, and it is our

minds, imagination, will

where the discovery is made

of how to pass the night, how to share the gift

of love, our bodies, which is true
illumination
of the present instant.

There is no other journey to make. We receive all
we need.

Without insight, we remain blind.
Without vision, we see only this world.

 

 

All the Lovers
by Kevin Killian

Outside the Disney Concert Hall,
Kylie has summoned a clutch of cold models in white underwear,

They clamber on white boxes pitching for the sky

Somehow she appears in a dream sequence,

Boys and girls kiss and poke and struggle for love

In California, where the major candidates for governor and senator
live the lavish lives of Roman emperors,

Carly Fiorina, like Nero, bought a violin
for everyone on her Christmas list, from Cremona,

her wood golden and thin as hair,

81 per cent of voters don’t care how wealthy a
candidate is

You have to be rich to flourish

What came first, the wifebeater or the social system
that allowed ever and ever more flourish

In the face of a liverish social despair
all the lovers who have gone before

they don’t compare to you

 

i am a big dumbass bear on christmas morning
by partrik

holy shit a house

im gonna look inside the fucking window

who the fuck is this dumbass family in this house

if i wanted to i could bust in there and eat every one of these fuckers

look at this little fucker opening a present

oh look its a fire truck big deal ass monkey

when are these shit hats gonna fucking notice the bear at their window

hey bitch you forgot to look in your stocking

there you go

lol bubba wubba and chocolate give her a fucking toothbrush mom and dad

when are they gonna see me and chase me away

damn thats a lot of wrapping paper

lol that kitten is playing in it what a retard

oh shit they see me

“im not gonna hurt you or eat you”

but it sounds like “roar roar roar” to them cause im a big dumbass fucking bear

dad thats a big ass gun

dont shoot me think of all the fun times

like when watched your lovely family open presents on christmas

oh shit he took a warning shot im gonna run away

there is no presents under any of the trees of the woods of the world for me

why arent i hibernating

 

in a string of christmas lights that is blinking all year long
by Diana Salier

for christmas i get a new magic set and a big plastic stealth bomber that opens up and holds fifty little metal stealth bombers. i wear footie pajamas that zip all the way to my neck. the big plastic stealth bomber has a runway to practice takeoffs and landings. i sit on the carpet in my onesie and make the grey and green stealth bombers crash into each other so that all the pilots inside will die. i can’t finish card tricks or make the red balls disappear so i wear my black felt magician’s hat and walk around pulling rabbits out of things. i drive to my first girlfriend’s house. we drink wine and leave the bottles in the door of her parents’ car. on the way back to my house i text her all i want for christmas is you. at home a string of christmas lights blinks erratically. i fall asleep clearing the rubble off the runway.

 

December
by James Schuyler

The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound,
this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center.
I thought I saw a cold blue dusty light sough in its boughs
the way other years the wind thrashing at the giant ornaments
recalled other years and Christmas trees more homey.
Each December! I always think I hate “the over-commercialized event”
and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance
to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all
the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank shops
and how can I help falling in love? A calm secret exultation
of the spirit that tastes like Sealtest eggnog, made from milk solids,
Vanillin, artificial rum flavoring; a milky impulse to kiss and be friends
It’s like what George and I were talking about, the East West
Coast divide: Californians need to do a thing to enjoy it.
A smile in the street may be loads! you don’t have to undress everybody.
“You didn’t visit the Alps?”
“No, but I saw from the train they were black
and streaked with snow.”
Having and giving but also catching glimpses
hints that are revelations: to have been so happy is a promise
and if it isn’t kept that doesn’t matter. It may snow
falling softly on lashes of eyes you love and a cold cheek
grow warm next to your own in hushed dark familial December.

 

Molly Is Asked
by Ron Koertge

to be in the Christmas pageant. She tells
me this standing in the door of what we
laughingly call my study.

“But I don’t want to be Mary,” she says.
“I want to be the guy.”

That makes me look up from my bills.
“Joseph?”

“The innkeeper. I want to slam the door
in Joseph’s face.”

She’s eight. I wonder if we’ll look back
on this next year and laugh. Or will she
want to be Herod and we’ll have to take
her little brother and flee.

 

Talking Turkeys
by Benjamin Zephaniah

Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked
An every turkey has a Mum.
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,
Don’t eat it, keep it alive,
It could be yu mate, an not on your plate
Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side.
I got lots of friends who are turkeys
An all of dem fear christmas time,
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it
An humans are out of dere mind,
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys
Dey all hav a right to a life,
Not to be caged up an genetically made up
By any farmer an his wife.

Turkeys just wanna play reggae
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying,
‘I cannot wait for de chop’,
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain
In many ways like yu an me.

I once knew a turkey called…Turkey
He said “Benji explain to me please,
Who put de turkey in christmas
An what happens to christmas trees?”,
I said “I am not too sure turkey
But itÕs nothing to do wid Christ Mass
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be
An business men mek loadsa cash’.

Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake
In a plate of organic grown beans,
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
An spare dem de cut of de knife,
Join Turkeys United an dey’ll be delighted
An yu will mek new friends ‘FOR LIFE’.

 

 

That night with the green sky
by Tao Lin

It was snowing and you were kind of beautiful
We were in the city and every time I looked up
Someone was leaning out a window, staring at me

I could tell you liked me a lot or maybe even loved me
But you kept walking at this strange speed
You kept going in angles and it was confusing me

I think maybe you were thinking that you’d make me disappear
By walking at strange speeds and in a strange, curvy way
But how would that cause me to vanish from the planet Earth?

And that hurts
Why did you want me gone?
That hurts
Why?
Why?
I don’t know
Some things can’t be explained, I guess
The sky, for example, was green that night

 

“Shhh”
by Eileen Myles

I don’t think
I can’t afford the time to not sit right down &
write a poem about the heavy lidded
white rose I hold in my hand
I think of snow
a winter night in Boston, drunken waitress
stumble on a bus that careens through
Somerville the end of the line
where I was born, an old man
shaking me. He could’ve been my dad
You need a ride? Wait, he said.
This flower is so heavy in my hand.
He drove me home in his old blue
Dodge, a thermos next to me
cigarette packs on the dash
so quiet like Boston is quiet
Boston in the snow. It’s New York
plates are clattering on St. Mark’s
Place. Should I call you?
Can I go home now
& work with this undelivered
message in my fingertips
It’s Summer.
I love you.
I’m surrounded by snow.

 

Music
by Frank O’Hara

If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf’s
and I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.
Close to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.
I have in my hands only 35¢, it’s so meaningless to eat!
and gusts of water spray over the basins of leaves
like the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to you
to have lavender lips under the leaves of the world,
I must tighten my belt.
It’s like a locomotive on the march, the season
of distress and clarity
and my door is open to the evenings of midwinter’s
lightly falling snow over the newspapers.
Clasp me in your handkerchief like a tear, trumpet
of early afternoon! in the foggy autumn.
As they’re putting, up the Christmas trees on Park Avenue
I shall see my daydreams walking by with dogs in blankets,
put to some use before all those coloured lights come on!
But no more fountains and no more rain,
and the stores stay open terribly late.

 

At Christmas
by Barbara Eknoian

 

on sunday we took the train to the city and we each went home for one night and i saw my parents and my bedroom and my cat and you saw your ex boyfriend and his parents and his bedroom and his dog and when i called you i heard you ask me to go back to sleep and i said is everything okay and you told me to please go back to sleep
by Spencer Madsen

not sure if you
ever told me how
you felt about
christmas lights

i said i’d wrap them around our room
and put popcorn in your mouth

a few weeks ago i
walked onto a street
and sat prepared

lets
sleep like two hands
caught
in each other’s fingers

lets be demonstrative
of that image
in an earnest way
lets forget i wrote it down
or else it won’t feel genuine

yesterday i googled:
homemade fleshlight

 

Hand Over Heart
by David Trinidad

I look up at the clock.
It’s time to go, so
I cover the typewriter
and calculator, lock my radio
in the file cabinet
and straighten my desk.
On the way out, I unplug
the Christmas tree lights.
I am rarely the last one
to leave the office.

Alone in the elevator,
I listen to a lilting
rendition of “Frosty
The Snowman.” The door
slides open. Outside,
it’s already dark. I say
good night to the guard
in the parking lot, wait
for my car to warm up.
It does and I drive off.

Halfway home
I turn on the radio
Madonna sings
her new hit, “Open
Your Heart.” At
the same time, on
another station,
Cyndi Lauper sings
her latest song, “Change
Of Heart”. Not that long
ago, it might have
been Brenda Lee
singing “Heart In Hand”
and Connie Francis
Belting out any number
of her most popular
tunes: “My Heart
Has A Mind Of Its
Own,” “Breakin’ In
A Brand New Broken
Heart,” “When
The Boy In Your Arms
(Is The Boy In Your
Heart)” or “Don’t
Break The Heart
That Loves You.”
I Don’t know why
I think about
such things.

 

 

Is This a Poem For the Year 2219?
by Mike Young

Yes, this is a poem for the year 2219
about the fact my bathroom is above
my neighbors’ bedroom, and I sing
Roy Orbison songs at immaculate volumes
during my routines, which is partly my love
of song and partly my obsession with the idea
of audience. Dear 2219, a bathroom is a private
chlorinated water repository filled with hair gel
and other methods of impression insurance,
like sleeping pills. Neighbors are people who
lock the downstairs door just because some
random bro started fingerpainting their door-
bell Sunday night. Oops, he said. You’re not my
parents. Neighbors leave notes asking you to park
considerately and curbside boxes of giveaway bins
to judge them by. In bedrooms, 2219, what you do is
sniff a cowboy shirt you’ve plucked off the floor to see
if it’s okay to wear for teaching the kids I guess you call
First Moroccan Restauranteer in Space and Single Season
Small Needle Home Run Record Holder. You leave the mandarin
peels on your bed after having awesome sex with your girlfriend
but throw them away when she leaves for work. In 2219, you may
instead want to rub the peels all over your chest. If so, history
repeats itself. Golly. Singing is a method of generating inside
you a logging road, dawn-ish, swards of sugar beets, after driving
all night, knowing it’s about to rain but it’s not raining yet, thanks
sky! Singing may also be catalogued as Christmas underwater
and hiking slowly along the railroad ties with the best candy bar
but no home. For the sub-category of song known as Roy Orbison,
ditch your footnotes, 2219! 1936-1988, popular for soaring R&B;
and indoor sunglasses: that’s not Roy Orbison! Roy Orbison is a
naked knee so lovely you’d cry if you weren’t afraid of the knee
getting wet. Other things you need to know, 2219: I am afraid of
everything. We would rake the stars into piles to say what’s after
us. Happiness without certain phone calls is impossible. Your father
will die. Last Christmas, I ran into my friend Reggie at the cineplex.
His kid was cute. Me and my other friend were making fun of the movie
Reggie wanted to see. Reggie and I cussed together for the first time I can
remember, but I think we’re made of different smoke. 2219, I might be
above you or something. But I’m probably just below you. I take so many
multivitamins. Sometimes I try to make sure the best songs in my iTunes
have the most plays, but I don’t know why. Carolyn’s a better singer than
I am, and Dorothy told me that when I sing Bridge Over Troubled Water
it sounds like I’m falling apart. Is that a good thing? Wouldn’t it be more
considerate to just spend my time recycling cartons of apple cider for
you, 2219? Instead I carry a pillowcase full of laundry to the laundromat
and try to memorize my life enough to remember my life. I walk streets
named after people too dead to meet and try to sing loud enough to get
stuck in strangers’ heads. Carolyn and I go down on each other to hear the
other make their sounds. One time I saw my downstairs neighbor in a
line, and she smiled, waved at me. I couldn’t remember who she was.
She left her place to come talk. Then I remembered. 2219, they just
found water on the moon. Your love will only count before it’s gone.

 

Christmas Eve
by Bill Berkson

for Vincent Warren

Behind the black water tower

under the grey
of the sky that feeds it
smoke speeds to where a pigeon
spreads its wings

This is no great feat
Cold pushes out its lust
We walk we drink we cast
our giggling insults

Would you please
leave the $2.50 you owe me
I would rather not talk about it
just now           Money bores me I would like
to visit someone who will stay
in bed all day           A forest is rising
imperceptibly in my head
not a civilized park

I think it would be nice this “new
moral odor” no it would not mean
“everything marching to its tomb”
The water tower
watches over us           Is there someone
you would like to invite           no one.

 

from I Remember
by Joe Brainard

I remember Christmas tree lights reflected on the ceiling.

I remember Christmas cards arriving from people my parents forgot to send cards to.

I remember mistletoe.

I remember Christmas carols. And car lots.

I remember Aunt Cleora who lived in Hollywood. Every year for Christmas she sent my brother and me a joint present of one book.

 

Connie’s Scared
by Clark Coolidge

The wind came up, the radishes died and
the peelings continued. No one could be
more hostile than a species enclosed in
a chimney for a century or so they told me.
The lighter fluid on the other hand might warm
your nails. We deserve overtime
for dealing daily with these mistreated burdens.
The milkweed pods for no reason in the world
we could see ignited and the frog is loose.
The mail at last arrived but you had better
proceed to lick your envelopes more heartily
as they all came empty. No one exactly states
but everybody thinks the whole world level
has been lowered and continues. If the flame
goes out the food will spoil, remember?

Then there is the problem of the stray moose
to be seen from the road or better not, bring
apples, take pictures, but the village idiot
had his son throw rocks. The later thunder
around the sleeping household was a mere
five minutes herd of cows. And Rip Rowan thought that
thunder was produced by two crickets banging
garbage cans together. Tomorrow the snow will
be higher and the school fail to attract. I pay
for entrance to this life by my exit, can’t wait
each morning to treat of impossible questions and
have never been depressed. Makes you wonder,
all these seacows spitting on their tails,
flashing lights on the spaceride and even in my dreams.
Claimed I awoke from the fight I couldn’t win.
Chained my warts to a snowcone.

Across the street are many stray dogs but whose
fault are the cats. Something terrible’s going on
in the woods the rabbit is screaming, the cat
distinctly calling your name, nothing that can’t
be solved with golf club and pistol empty. Lock
your house when you leave for the auto. The company
that brought you pasteboard frowns on too many
fallen trees. Check your son’s teeth when he eats
or he’ll end a blimp. A crib death when a baby’s
network lapses mid-breath. The television not collapse
but slowly burn out. And that cooking by radar might cost
you a few meals. There goes another roast beast.

The adult book human gunned down as he left. Seems
the nature of crime to go unsolved, covered up,
never caught. Sal Mineo, for one. If so, wouldn’t
you want your kids to stop it. A gay couple hated
for their foul language not their sex. But the fat weather
woman terminated as a lesbian. Stamp out discomfort
and lift a heel for bliss. Heaven more attractive
now that harps are out of style. One arm in a sling
and the other in a bear. At the loss of life and
limb remain cool. Their son last seen chewed by
croc in pool of steam.

There is no longer any Florida and Christmas nowhere.
The men removed our home sometime lastnite while
we shook. Asked me how I felt and what he could do
with his mike. All my girlfriends have been raped,
some in basements, some by families. Even in the movies
they don’t know they can complain. Reels mixed, eyesight
tearing. Heard they’ve even left the lights on in space.
The dawning hastes and subsequent vagueries.
Never a morning wake but I congeal.

 

Some kind of nut
by Charles Bukowski

the best Christmas I can remember
I was in a tiny room in
Philadelphia
and I pulled down all the
shades
and went to bed
and pulled up the
covers.

there was no telephone.
there were no Christmas cards.
there was no family.
there were no gifts

and I believe that I felt better
than anybody in that
city
and almost anybody
in any of the
cities.

and I celebrated New Year’s
Eve in the same
manner.

 

A Severe Lack of Holiday Spirit
by Amy Gerstler

I dread the icy white concussion
of winter. Each snowfall demands
panic, like a kidnapper’s hand
clapped over my chapped mouth.
Ice noms everywhere, a plague
of glass. Christmas ornaments’
sickly tinkle makes my molars ache.
One pities the anemic sun
come January. Trees go skeletal.
Children born in the chilly months
are apt to stammer. People hit
the sauce in a big way all winter.
Amidst blizzards they wrestle
unsuccessfully with the dark comedy
of their lives, laughter trapped
in their frigid gizzards. Meanwhile,
the mercury just plummets,
like a migrating duck blasted
out of the sky by some hunter
in a cap with fur earflaps.

 

On his reluctance to take down the Christmas ornaments
by John Ashbery

A nice, normal morning:
feet setting out as though in a trance,
doubling the yesterdays, a doubled man
under the stairs, and strange surrealist fish
from so much disappearance, damaged in the mail.

Or the spry cutting edge of another day.
Here, we have these in
sizes and colors —
day goes fluttering by.

Like ivy behind a chimney
it grows and grows in ropes.
Mouse teams unsay it,
yeoman can’t hear yet.

A shadow purling,
up into the sky.
Silence in the vandalised vomitorium.

It’s great that you can be here too.
Passivity rests its case.

 

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. I’m going to be something of a traditionalist and take Xmas Day off from doing the blog this year, albeit for no real reason other maybe making the day seem otherly or something. So you’ll have an extra day to read all of the festive poems up there, and I’ll see you again come Tuesday once Xmas itself is a defunct attraction. ** Misanthrope, Nothing like it, yep. We’ve been brrring here for, oh, a week and a half. Eat lots of appropriate whatever and open packages that make you happy and all that good stuff. ** _Black_Acrylic, You can be sure I did a real scour looking for current day UK Xmas attraction disasters, and, very sadly, I think you’re right. The days of the UK owning the dark side of Xmas seem to have passed, not that any other country has stepped up to wear the crown. Tragic stuff. I hope your Monday and prior are full of the most wonderful everything, my friend. ** Dominik, Hi!!! The Xmas romcom has to be the worst genre in history, not that I’ve actually watched any of them. Yes, the buche was retrieved, gawked at, subdivided with a knife and devoured. And it lived up to all hopes. Zac and I agreed it was the most delicious Xmas buche ever, and we’ve even a lot of them. And here it is just prior to its destruction. Ha ha, I’m guessing the words ‘and’ or ‘the’ wouldn’t count as answers to that statistics question. Wow, who knows, right? I think if it were a question of what words I’ve most used in the p.s. ‘Oh’ or ‘Wow’ would win. Love allowing me to pop by your place on Xmas just long enough to play my favorite Xmas song for you and your family which, no surprise, is by Guided by Voices, and which is titled ‘Father Sgt’ Xmas Card’, and which is 2 minutes and 5 seconds long, and which goes exactly like this. ** Steve Erickson, Thanks, Steve. I really liked ‘Godzilla Minus One’. I almost put it on my faves of the year list. I’ll check Damon Packard’s Youtube channel. It’s been too long since I’ve caught up with that fella. Congrats the album’s nearness. Bated breath, obviously. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi. It’s definitely quieting by the second. I believe the building I live in has now emptied down to just me and the disabled grandmother who never leaves her apartment. Yeah, the city empties way out. Of Parisians, I should say. Tourists take up the slack. Of course I adore that video you linked to, and, thus, do offer you my passionate encouragement to make said guest-post should the impetus to do so stick around, and thank you for the mere idea and offer. Merry not Xmas to you, sir, well, unless by some fluke you do mark the occasion in some fashion, in which case merry without the not. ** Okay. I hope everyone who’s reading this has precisely the kind Xmas you wish to have, and please let my selection of hopefully appropriate poems enhance the situation, and I’ll see you back here on Tuesday.