I Celebrate Christmas

I Celebrate Christmas.

My brother died the day after Christmas.

My son died after one of the best Christmas’s we’d ever had.

I’ve been poor at Christmas

Celebrated with few of the trimmings

I’ve been well off and enjoyed the fatness of the season.

I have seen great kindness.

I have seen appalling greed and selfishness.

I have given to others.

I have received when I could not give.

I Celebrate Christmas.

I am amazed at the tenacity of man.

He longs for peace on Earth.

He wishes all “Good will toward men,”

Though the world seems quite bereft of good will these days.

We sing the season in.

We sing the season out.

We even hum the odd carol in summer

When our hearts want cooled and soothed.

A little “Jingle Bells” has magic even then.

I Celebrate Christmas.

I put up the tree to drape with tinsel.

I string the lights upon the house,

So my neighbors will see them and maybe smile.

I drink the celebratory eggnog with my daughter.

The only one of my kids who likes the stuff.

I make cookies, adopt homeless fruitcakes and batches of fudge.

I have my red elf’s hat. My hair and beard are white.

I know it’s a game and Jesus wasn’t born December 25.

But still I choose to be happy this time of year.

I Celebrate Christmas.

© 2012 Tom King

My Golden Heart (a guest poem by my sister)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Golden Heart

We sit in grief this night with our sweet Huckleberry boy;
Watch his body rise and fall with peaceful, gentle breaths.
In deep sleep he wags his tail and chases rabbits still,
This dog of ours has brought with him so much happiness,
And he will go and leave us with lovely memories.

In such sacred times I think on things like virtues most hold true;
Our love for children and God’s creatures and all the elders too,
Laughter, love and kindness, empathy, and honesty for sure;
Admiration for the deeply challenged few
Who do not subscribe to victimhood. 

Apart from these I do not see a point.
I weep in brokenness for distraction from my purpose
To love, to rise, to forgive all things with grace.
So, I’ll sage my home, cleanse my heart, confess my sins
And live my life in peace.

When demons come a knocking, they cannot enter here
Their boastful pride and hatred; their lies and judgement too.
For these are machinations of lesser gods who have no power in me.
They are not invited in you see; I have sacred work to do.

He is separating wheat from tares in fields stretched out before me.

I will not fret nor gather back the tares.
Huck will gently kiss my face and I will kiss his head
And wipe away my tears.
So, run to Bonnie; run to Dew; Molson is there too.
For there they wait in tall, soft grass just to love on you.

You remind me of these truths my friend, my golden heart.
Sleep well and deep. Sweet dreams tonight.
I’ll see you in the morning I am certain sure,
Thank you for the love you gave.
My darlin’, my Huckleberry boy.

© by Paula D. King

April 30: Seventh Summer, West Coast's Warming

 

 

 

Seventh Summer; West Coast's Warming

The drizzle ended early this year.
   In April when the showers come heaviest.
It's a seventh year and the sun is turned up high,
   The heat will lower the lakes not fill them.

In April when the showers come heaviest,
   But the rain doesn't come, so my bones don't hurt so much.
The heat will lower the lakes, rather than fill them.
   I will lower myself into a lawn chair in the sun.

But the rain doesn't come, so my bones don't hurt so much.
   There are perks to a west coast dry spell.
I will lower myself into a lawn chair in the sun.
   I appreciate the break from relentless drizzle.

There are perks to a west coast dry spell.
   It's a change I welcome. Hey, I'm from Texas.
I appreciate the break from relentless drizzle.
   Though it means I'll have to water the birds and plants.

It's a change I welcome. Hey I'm from Texas.
   Drought is what we do out on the edge of the prairie.
Though here it means I'll have to water the birds and plants,
   And feed extra peanuts to the squirrels and bunnies.

 © 2022 with Tom King

April 29: Rhythm

 

Rhythm
by Tom King

Speech has a rhythm all its own,
And varies from location to location.
The angry staccato of the Germanic tongues
And Japanese that seem made for shouting orders
To soldiers standing in close formation
Gruff sounds of the native American nations,
To go with beating drums and warlike proclamations,
And for working up courage before a fight.
The sexual rhythms of the romance speakers,
Easy languid words suitable for wooing women or men for that matter.
Then there's the rapid fire clipped speech of the subcontinent.
The aggressive, fist shaking enunciation of the Middle East.
Greek sounds to me like mathematics problems;
Russian like large men, cold and trying to stay warm with vodka.
African communication rings of drums and music and dancing.
And English? The language of thieves who have stolen all the best,
So we can order soldiers around like the Germans,
Romance women like the French,
Bark like angry shopkeepers enunciating like in Mandarin,
Sing with the bemused music of the South Pacific,
But only if we want to, otherwise we're as flat-toned as
The anchors on the nightly news.
English has those lovely dialects depending on who came here,
Seeking shelter from persecution somewhere or other.
We hear echoes of the Scots and Irish in the hills of Tennessee.
We hear the Yorkshire dales, the Scottish highlands, and the slight drawl
Of the British midlands and the Irish west out in Texas and the West.
In the North we hear the cold uplands of Europe, Scandinavia, Britain,
Eastern Europe, Slavic folks, French Huguenots and country folk from Italy.
Americans have absorbed a lot of dialects, gentled some of them.
Appropriated all the very best words and pronunciations.
Scots got more mellow. I don't think Americans have the abdominal strength,
To carry that accent full time. It requires too much diaphragm.
I like English precisely for it's thievery.
We've stolen all the best words and when and if
Some language finds a better word for something,
We just swipe the word and make its music ours.
And if our poetry seems to be whatever we want it to be,
That's fine too. If we like the sound of it,
We just forget the rhyme and sometimes even the rhythm.
Some language snobs like the French
With their government language purity councils,
Think we're lazy, but we're not.
We're just creative and, for now, we're used to being free,
Even in the very words and how we speak 'em.
So the rest of Earth can quit feeling all superior.
Just shut up and listen, guys. The movie is about to start,
And the actors sound a bit like y'all.

© 2022 by Tom King

April 28: A Scots Descendant Talks Haggis

On Haggis
by Tom King

I've never in person seen a haggis.
Not a salty, bitter or a sweet one.
But I can tell you this right now,
I'd rather see than eat one!

© 2022 by Tom King

April 27: Down at the Flea Market

 

 Down at the Flea Market
                 by Tom King

 Living the raggedy life on the raggedy edge,
   Retail for the most part is out of my range,
So, for much of my life, the flea market's been
   My JC Penny's, my Sears. Goods for small change.
Fat folk in spandex, old men in saggy jeans.
   Jammed cheek by jowl, shirttails hanging out,
Examine the piles of other people's unwanted stuff,
   Treasures spotted on the day's aimless walkabout.
Stuff the sellers lay out, things no longer wanted.
   Stuff to sell to me, much I didn't know I'd need.
And got to have at prices I can haggle down,
   Toys I've forgotten, books I really have to read.
Someone inevitably asks, "What'd you need that for?"
   I'm not sure, but I've never yet willingly parted
With something I found among the market fleas,
   Everything just seems to be a project someday started.
Perhaps because I found it cheap and unexpected,
   It feels like some kind of discovered treasure
And it's true I haven't got round to using them, yet.
   But someday, they'll give me just a little pleasure.  

                                           ...at the great deal I got. 

© 2022 by Tom King

 

April 26: Do Not Be Afraid

 

 Do Not Be Afraid
      by Tom King

One clings to life like a Texan at the Alamo
   Knowing death is coming for certain.
Knowing that the end is inevitable.
  Not knowing what's beyond death's curtain.

Another knows for sure there's nothing
   Because there is no order to his universe.
Death is little more that sinking back to dust.
   No meaning, nothing better nothing worse.

Beside him stands another knowing naught
   But that rest lies beyond the catacomb
A Lazarus sleep, a dreamless waiting
   For Him who will call us one day home.

In the end we all get what we want.
   Eternal  nothing, pain and flame,
Or eternal life if that's what you accept.
   God gives us if we want it all the same.

The universe does not need a place to torture
   Sinners forever as if God's love's restrained.
Like some vindictive celestial Hitler.
   Who cannot live without a place of pain.. 

When the fires finally burn themselves out
   Darkness gone all that's left will be light.
No more suffering no envy, evil, death
   All heaven scrubbed, eternally, clean and bright

© 2022 by Tom King

Greater poets than I have tried to figure out about heaven and hell and whether there even is such a thing. I come down on the side that believes evil does not have to exist to "balance" good, God does not need the Devil. Happiness does not need sadness to be happiness. The devil would like you to believe he is essential to the universe. He is not. The whole point of Earth is to get us to a perfect universe. Unless Hell burns itself out, it would always be a blot on a perfect universe.  - Tom

 

April 25: Like a Song in the Night

 

Like a Song in the Night
          by Tom King

Something sings in the dark
In the wee hours before us.
Sings me off to sleep in peace
And night birds join the chorus.

Something about the early dark,
Night full of the moon and stars
Drifting overhead with the planets
Making music Venus, Jupiter and Mars.

The night in its silence makes song,
You can hear it if you're still and quiet
And in the distance galaxies play music
And stars and nebulae run riot.


© 2022 by Tom King

April 24: World's End

 

At World's End
by Tom King

The Universe is watching, the peoples of the stars
Sometimes, I suspect, in bewilderment
At what we have done to ourselves here,
In seven thousand years of blood and terror.

I suspect they wonder why - all of them - that He
Would let it go on so long; long past proved
That the rebellion isn't working out so well,
Not the way the devils advertised.

I think I understand for in all of history there are
More now alive than have ever lived and died.
And technology has given us the means to speak
To each of them at once the truth.

He is a jealous God, not wanting even one
That can be gathered to be lost.
When His sons and daughters stand at the ready,
Like lightning He will come to take us home.

The Thunder whispers far off in the distance,
A portent at just the edge of hearing.
We feel it. Smell it on the wind. See eternity rolling in,
A black cloud like a fist rising in the East.

© 2022 by Tom King