Why is it that the Medical Alert
ladies are looking younger
and younger as they call out,
“Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t
get up,”?
Are they really getting younger
or am I just catching up?
The women stood around in
the kitchen fondling those
emergency buttons hanging
around their necks,
while I watched and wondered
what the heck,
just thinking that I could
be their age;
I thought I might fly into
a rage,
but I calmed down
and my wife asked if
I might like one of those
buttons; the ad said they
were coming at a discount
price;
I just smiled and said,
“That, dear, would be
very nice.”
So, she called the 800
number
as I went to bed for my
mid-afternoon slumber.
On my way, I wondered why
she wanted the button
for me to buy.
She’s always here;
and then I realized she
intended to go bye, bye.
Well, she’s a good woman
and has my best interests
at heart
even though she is soon
to depart,
and so I hit the bed and
started to snore
as she quietly walked out the
front door
whispering
“Bye, dear; I just couldn’t
take anymore.”

Oh, little, Charley Brown Christmas
tree standing on the mantel, skinny

arms flailing about, here, there
seemingly everywhere, who would

want you? Some, some with tender
love. Someone bought you and gave

you as a gift; someone received you
graciously and put you in a prominent

place and moved those skinny, wiry
arms about and hung tiny lights on

them and little strands of tinsel
and capped you off with a tiny,

shiny star. And finally turned up
the ends of your top arms just a

little, ever so little, like hands
raised in a gesture of praise to

the little Christmas crèche on the
mantel next to you. You are loved

little Charley Brown Christmas
tree; you are exactly what a

Christmas tree should be.

He traveled far from many a place
until he reached the straw strewn space.
It was cold by Bethlehem’s way;
animals and humans did not venture far from
the steamy hay.
a baby’s cry, a shiver, a foggy cough,
a few animals wandered to the trough;
they did not find food to be had
but saw the babe, a face to make God glad.
He was one of three traveling to that holy space
and he knew that his life the babe would grace.
His searching was finally complete;
in that straw strewn kingdom he found the mercy-seat.
So, now when he travels it is with peace of mind,
proclaiming justice and mercy to the creation and all humankind.
The incarnation of God’s universal embrace from above
is found in a straw strewn barn of self-sacrificial love.

the dune grass sways rhythmically
to the little drummer boy pa rum

pum pum pum; wind chimes mimic
sleigh bells ringing in christmas

and ringing out the year, jingle
bells, jingle bells, jingle bell

rock ba boom, ba boom, boom,
boom, santa baby, hurry down

the chimney tonight; it’s begin-
ning to look a lot like christmas,

well actually not, and perhaps
that is why, branches beat against

the house in syncopation and bells
beep, beep, beep, beep, beep,

beep, beep, beep, beep, beep as
Leroy Anderson drives the sleigh

through the pine grove carrying
johnny mathis, teresa brewer,

darlene love, the beach boys and
bing crosby and a cardinal croons,

have yourself a merry, little
christmas while his mate looks

like she is looking longingly
for snow or maybe that’s just

in the writer’s mind as the
rain beats down on the roof.

When I read poetry, which is often,
I think to myself that the poets are
really pulling a fast one over on the
rest of us because they never learned
to put coherent sentences and para-
graphs together and to follow a
thought through to it’s logical con-
clusion in a rational argument but
opted for nonsense line breaks and
word breaks in places other than
grammatically accepted syllables,
obscure images and language that
just pop into their heads or, in
fact, they know all about the ess-
entials of grammar and spelling
and coherent, meaningful, logical
writing growing out of critical
thinking but are called by a
different muse, an ancient one,
one that precedes all modern
grammar and therefore is the
language of the gods or demi-
gods or something or other in
between.

The powers that be went to work
and added “54 words to a tax and
spending bill of more than 2,000
pages that temporarily preserved
a loophole sought by the hotel,
restaurant and gambling industries,
and billionaire Wall Street investors.”

Happy Holiday is played on the
pipe by The Donald, Pied Piper to
angry, old, working class, white
people, as he strolls to the vault
to deposit gifts to himself while
promising a pleasant trip over the
edge to his fearful, feckless follow-
ers who get the shaft and the gift
of all the charcoal while he gets
the mine, mine, mine.

Often his muscles freeze
into knots under a warm

blanket like fear creep-
ing and seizing during

a serene evening’s sleep,
both dispelled by moving

about the cold morning’s
light, stretching, basking

in the new day. Taking
the dog for a walk among

pines, listening to the
waterfall, watching fish.

She stood, no towered over all of us, a massive torso under house dresses down to her ankles where her dress brushed against her formidable brogans and half glasses on a chain resting on her bulbous nose below her big bun, brown hair laced with silver.

She addressed us as mister and miss as she walked around her desk and in front of the front row, a wooden, foot long ruler in hand, slapping against her thigh and palm of the other hand.

Intimidation, no abject fear, is what she invoked as she said, “Open your books to page seventeen. Mister,” she hesitated and all the boys prayed they wouldn’t hear their name pronounced with the authority of a great punishing goddess.

“…Mr. Allen, please begin reading where we left off yesterday.” Same name, no relation, thank God, Mr. Allen had said on numerous occasions on the playground during recess and out of ear shot of Mrs. Allen.

Left off? Yesterday? It might just as well have been a year ago in fourth grade. Russell Allen simply stared at the book on his desk.

Anna Mae Winstrom leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “Second paragraph.” And then the booming voice, “Miss Winstrom!” Anna Mae sat back duly chastened. Russell stood and read haltingly.

Then over the top of her reading glasses, her eyes zeroed in on me sitting at the back of the class, where she put me for talking repeatedly out of turn. Oh, no. I knew I was next to read.

And so, the year went like that, except I had entered at the bottom of the class and left for sixth grade having moved up the ranks significantly.

Somewhere along that year, I fell in love with Mrs. Allen and on the day of graduation from grade school to high school, I saw her in the hall and without reservation, I approached her and said, “Mrs. Allen, Thank you so much for helping me through fifth grade. And I’m sorry for having talked out of turn so much. You were a wonderful teacher.”

I saw her eyes warm over her spectacles and a smile came to her face. “Thank you. You know I expect great things from you, William.” She didn’t call me mister. She turned on her brogans and as she walked away I saw a bit of a sway in her old house dress.

he read an article where the author
wrote that she doesn’t do christmas
anymore. a contradiction summing up
the season: obligatory gift giving.
a feeding frenzy of torn paper, torn
boxes, torn hearts, too much booze,
too many fights into the night, sad,
sad songs that tug at heartstrings
stretched to the limit, some even
pop, pop, pop like the festive bubbly
sung about in the hyper-happy holiday
song and afterward? sometime after
the new year amid all the broken
resolutions, the most important day
of the year, the day of a spike or
drop in the market depending on
whether or not holiday sales met
corporate expectations, and then
the bills and all those january
suicides….

At the core of every human
creature there is a profound
solipsism, the writer said in
an interview. He wants to
write something pointing
that out in a palatable way
that the audience would
actually love and perhaps
all the selfish stuff about
human nature would seep
in along the entertainingly
palatable way. Would they
then get it? He is not sure,
but, at least, he is having
fun along that palatably
solipsistic or that
solipsistically palatable
way.