The Christmas Epithaph

What art thou, Christmas?

Building up your legendary come-back year by year,

         Always on the last three months,                             In commercials so fancy,

through verbal anticipation,               in decorated streets,

    On joyful wrappings                                                               dazzling lights

glitters around me

What art thou, indeed?

a volcano day

jolly arrangements of lava,            Las Vegas eruptions?

What have you been?

What have you been for them peoples?

What have you been for me?

You have been something for my house, I must admit.

But nothing, nothing for my room!

You have done nothing, nothing for my soul,

You have done nil, nil for my health!

You have forgotten my children dying in wars.

 

What art thou, Christmas?

Would I hear about you in Shakespearean riddles?

In a Freudian myth?

Are you registered in the Jungian archetypes list?

25^th December, I know, you have been that,

That has been you,

But for that date what have you done?

Have you enhanced it, made it merrier?

For some, yes. Even perhaps for many a western world,

With so many turkeys in distress.

You have enchanted it.

25^th December, a dolly charcoal burning of my thoughts.

But you have forgotten to shush the earth

the earthquakes have killed many

on this merry date

the hurricanes, this theatre natural of an alternative absurd…

 

But I cannot forget.

No, no, nothing can make me forget.

25^th December.

“Is your name Christos?”

I can’t forget.

They don’t let me forget.

“Wow! Today is your name day!”

they always say

And I should be so happy.

Christmas, the merry lolly dolly day tailored to my being.

And what have you done for me, my soul, my mind,

my fucking plague inside my oversized shoes?

What have you done for my omni-ceased inspiration during these days of fixed bliss?

Nothing, nothing for my ever-leaking perspiration over wishes for my damned name

Christos

Christmas

chrisimon

chrisma

All Greek creeks creeping inside my red veins.

 

What art thou, Christmas?

Winter, shouldn’t my complexion whiten whither ado?

But like the shadow of a dead Jesus epitaph view

in a church yard

three months later just before Easter,

as I pass under it,

I am darker as I approach this weird Christos day,

My skin is darker

the lava - the charcoal – the decorations – the wish –

the wish is a curse – I know now!

I KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN!

 

Baptizing me

to the rituals of death,

Indeed, Christmas,

what have you done

for my birth

and what

for my

long-gone

mirth?