Holiday Poems

Musings from the mind of a saint (me)

I’ve written a Christmas poem and a New Year’s Eve poem. Little scraps of thoughts, mostly unedited, for my dear friends:

E Lucevan le Stelle

Mara said she changed the day by changing her mind
so I gave optimism a try

What is it Gramsci advocated for? Optimism
of will, pessimism of intellect?

But intellect has nothing to do with cheer,
everything to do with familiarity

The streets feel foreign to me now

The Christmas lights sparkle brand new,
you said you preferred them vintage

I find myself, I disagree—
the facsimile of age brings on

a certain steadiness that causes one to rot
the stench noticeable to everyone except You

I can feel my legs now
walking as much as I have been

Texting Emily Tradition is good
until it’s used to ward off the presupposed evil

Of newness

Today we’ll go to the bakery down the street
for a box of their Italian cookies

As future crosses out the past
with its iron heft

Today
I’ll have had the lasagna

Looking Rich, Feeling Rich

I’m most interested in what people don’t say to me
because of who they think I am:
a pillar atop a mountain
the mother at the bottom of the lake

I’ve built this life thought by thought
must I take responsibility for all of it—
every stutter? Chance,
the rolling thunder through a blank sky

Circumstantial glory arrives
a bullet through the head of a grassy knoll
I’ve applied pressure to both temples and sat
the last day on Earth is for such luxuries
for lovers to sprawl and coo

Save me from life
the mute glares from my phone
drag my made-up face to hell, dear God, dear babe
each kiss a suture, each midnight a chance
to say it as it needs to be said
and never again

Then, only then, will the fresh morning speak