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Christmas Ghosts

Christmas Ghosts

(for anyone when looking at the lights is sad)

 

Christmas ghosts

They come a-haunting

Like eldritch carolers

Singing of the past

Offering misery for the present

I don’t know how to get rid of them

 

Maybe we need to

Invite them in

Drink their eggnog for them

Actually, I don’t think anything spiked

Will do

Open a present from the future, maybe

Letting life go on

Remove a shackle of the holiday

Leave it nearby, if need be

Allow something to be new

The snow, if snow

A phone call with an acquaintance

Something that is mild

Like a babe when sleeping

And sleep, too, you should

Maybe leave a light on

Of an unusual color

For season when a miracle

Or matter of will,

A gentle exorcism

Might happen

 

C L Couch

 

 

Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Letchworth Garden City, United Kingdom

lights of Christmas

 

 

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Second Day of Christmas

Second Day of Christmas

(Boxing Day)

 

Boxing Day

I heard it was British

And in a loosely associated way

Thought maybe it involved

Kangaroos, which

I had seen boxing in cartoons

 

I gather now

The boxes have to do with gifts

Since this is the day the British

Present each other with, well, presents

 

I guess for them it is as well

The second day of Christmas

Two turtledoves

I’m not sure when the Yule log is lit

Yesterday?  The first?  The sixth of January,

Twelfth Night?

The first day when it’s cold?

 

And mummers,

Strangely costumed people—

Who became carolers

Or was it the carolers who transformed?

I’ve seen the costumes

There is a parade in Philadelphia

Some are ridiculous

Some are the occult totemized

What’s going on?

 

These are my people

The English and the Irish

The Scots and the Welsh

They started coming here

In the fifteenth century

Through to a couple of generations ago

Did they want to get away from

All that?  Or

Was it their own change

In what they knew to have?

 

I was a WASP

I am from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio

With a brief adventure in

California

I am too old for young adventures now

Maybe one more expedition with

The older soldiers of Ulysses

By way of Tennyson

 

Maybe my gift today will be

A little understanding

Where I was

Who I am

Who might I be

As I am

For you

 

C L Couch

 

 

By Peretz Partensky from San Francisco, USA – White Doves at the Blue Mosque, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24568193

 

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to readers, then a poem

I hope it is a holiday of blessings for you, regardless of tradition or having no tradition.  It’s a time when at least we speak to peace on Earth, which means more people think about it, if only in reaction.  And reactive thought can realized in action.

I’m still dealing with new pain, and I hardly sleep at night (from old pain and the new).  I’m sorry, this makes me less communicative than I’d so much like to be.  I’m trying some new medication.  Maybe that will provide enough amelioration.

I wish and pray for you a Merry Christmas, leading to the start of what will be a Happy New Year.

Christopher

 

Let Earth

(end of Advent, Christmas Eve or Christmas day, or, you know, anytime)

 

And where is joy?

It’s here

 

Depending on your mood

Or how you’re treated

How you treat someone else

You may not see it

The wrong ones will not pay attention

The ones who are wronged will

Because they must

It often goes this way

With wisdom to

Make a choice,

A pledge to difference

 

If you can,

In all moods choose joy

If you can’t, maybe joy will find you

If not, we’ll have to wait

Endure

‘Til there is allowance

And recourse

 

Sorry if that’s hollow

Everything cannot be fixed

In a day

A year

And not a moment

But where is joy?

It’s here

If within opacity like crystals in

The tube of a kaleidoscope

But made of a magic kind of gem that

Someday must crash through

 

Into release

A new promise of day

Without involvement of the persecutor

With unbound chances

To live openly and well

 

A day of birth

Such as this one

 

C L Couch

 

Larisa-K / 471 images

https://pixabay.com/en/winter-patterns-freezes-design-20135/

 

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As We Are, No Other

As We Are, No Other

(Christmas Eve, anytime)

 

This is a good surprise

We are invited to a dance

And we don’t have to know

Anything about steps or rhythm

Or the key of the orchestra

 

It’s a party, too

All we have to do to respond

Is see the card

In leaves or

Hear the invitation in the branches’

Song to sky

 

It’s for a birthday, yes

Don’t worry about timing

The child knows of better things

And will manage precision for you

 

We have this chance

Will it come again?

Yes, I think so

But we have it

Why not take part now?

 

Mister Dickens claimed

A few pounds make us happy

So Fezziwig will close the shop

And take the silent cost

In that

And pay for decorations, too

 

We might have to be our own accountants

White elephants might attend

(maybe black cats

zebras to negotiate)

There might be stone soup for supper

Served in lucky pots

Hey, but it’s a party

 

And if we own nothing

All the better for arriving

What do newborns have,

And how welcome are they?

 

It’s a party without consequences,

Because we will behave

Enjoying the relief of good, clean fun,

Everyone welcome

 

The birds will sing

If we don’t want to

And sing, anyway

Nature speaks in volumes

It’s miracle

We could provide the miracle in

Listening

 

Enjoy it all

Bring what you have

Or nothing

Remembering that at this kind of

Festival,

We are the gifts

 

C L Couch

 

 

note

White elephant is a metaphor from the USA and Britain, based on Asian custom (with real elephants).

 

cocoparisienne / 2607 images

https://pixabay.com/en/elephant-skin-elephant-245071/

 

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All at Once Everywhere

All at Once Everywhere

(for Christmas day, anytime)

 

It’s a holiday everywhere

Except where it’s not

Sometimes in some places that

Is normal

Some places not so much

 

Where there is suffering

Where there is illness without comfort

Where there is nothing but alone

 

And, you know,

Christ came for these

An infant will grow up into infinity

We will treat him horribly

He will return, because he loves us

More than that

He is here

He is with us, now

And all the angels

With the saints

That’s us

 

C L Couch

 

 

suesnyder722 / 8 images

https://pixabay.com/en/frost-winter-morning-snow-season-633826/

 

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Presents

Presents

 

It’s the day before the night

The day

We accrue and also let go

 

We work then must retire so that

In new time, it all might give

Again

It’s not a game, though everyone

Can win

Each one chooses

Each one gets involved

A family, however it’s

Constructed (one, two, how many)

 

A job

Bringing together love and money

Not mistaking either for the

The other

 

A home, which might have a roof of slate

Or wood or stone or maybe only

Stars

 

We live and move and have our being

We give

We get

We give

One cycle that is good and bears repeating

Risking boredom in redundancy,

Which will not happen

 

Have

A quiet night

Somehow without the noise of war

Lights in the snow

Subdued contributions from a hopeful

Color wheel

 

And a notion free from one sect

For a time

Believe or not

Or

 

Receive more simply

Peace on Earth

Merry Christmas

 

C L Couch

 

(image from AccuWeather, 2009)

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Good Will

Good Will

 

The world is crazy now

Because it’s captured Christmas

But in quiet streets from houses simply lit

Against all garishness and harshness,

It is released again

And is

 

More so

The ransom of the wise

Of love,

Having been paid

By those who pray and help so much

 

Illuminating life

Nearly

In secret

 

C L Couch

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/etolane/349044647/

Snowy

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Good Christmas Friday

Good Christmas Friday

 

Christmas day on Sunday

And in my reformed way,

I feel a new triduum

 

But what to mourn tomorrow?

All the peace that has not

Happened

In the world

Peace on Earth

Worthy of a Tolkien epic

Or a Lewis telling

 

Inklings remembered, a new

Generation nonetheless

Is calling:

 

Severing war ties in the cosmos

Sewing threads

Into the weave of conflict

 

To wear retaining

Wisdom, the innocence in

Relented cynicism

 

The hopes of open-tomb-like

Understanding

Embraces resurrected

Sibling salvation

 

Let us share—let us keep—an

Earthbound feast

 

All

Holy days reconciled

In time

 

C L Couch

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Still Christmas in Berlin

Still Christmas in Berlin

 

No romance for the moment

Christ child forgotten

In the press of madness and of stirring

Grief

To complement the cowardice in Nice

Undeclared, ununiformed men

Who know no better

Than to render a cause stupid

And larcenous

Stealing life from love

The gospel of the season

That will outlast you

 

C L Couch

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/world/europe/berlin-christmas-market-truck-crash.html?_r=0

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