Artwork © Robert Fleming
White Christmas
for Tom Lucas
A mind is a closet of lavender candles
Time’s an inhospitable virgin
Whose musky scent is hidden
above our heads
And ignited by Angels like gas
Breath is visible in the air too
No Vacancy Rooms for Rent
A threadbare abundance
The song of the whippoorwill
Palm fronds scratch clear expectant rhythms
The northern womb kisses its darkness
Heat is sucked from the earth
A hive opens like an elevator of amnesiacs
At the ocean floor
Sand ripples spread in the pale light
A lanky girl
At the crest of a waves above
Combs the sleepless stars from her hair
We end up here
Knees knocking
Where we knew we would be already
At the slaughter of the innocents
Our voices
The consuming rage of gunfire
The bells toll again
The perpetual arrival of mourning
A door slides open for us
Did we forget where we were
A whole world
That smells so good
We feel the need for new socks
A Cognac a gold watch
Top drawer stuff
Normal things
For the naked Messiah
The swaddling is wet
Just before we forgot what
It warned us to remember
Under the moon of kinship
It rubbed our faces in it
The audacity of being
The denial of the obvious
Miraculously transformed to joy
Church bells solemnity
Privilege of the paupers
Mausoleums emptied
As refuge from the bombings
The glorious arrival
Into the head-cracked
Stone-curb gutter
The dirty bum of memory
Opens his mouth
And un-heals the wounded
All is visible all mirthful
Sausages and beer tonight
Our foot in the door
Our hand on the control
Our smelly corner in the rain is infected
In this holy instant
Our body is a house on fire
Ascending to the clouds in a fulminating red glow
Where the future attacks our dreams with visions
As the priests sing Hebrew songs
And the bull sacrificed at sunset
Drips his semen and blood
Solstice virgin night of innocence
In the desert far from Rome
The wise men burn camel shit to light the way
Stop these messengers
No one is pure
All pretend
Fools commissioned by fools
Step from the multi-cliffs of faith
Forever delighted looking up
The little dogs too
We pray
For a child too scared to die
GM Drosdowich published his first novel, “Bad to Me” NineMile Books September 2022. He’s had Poetry published over the years in The Seneca Review, NineMile Magazine, Hole in the Head Review and Alternate Route. He is a retired Green Energy Developer and Attorney. He resides in Warwick, NY with his wife, adult children and 2 grandkids.
Robert Fleming is a digital artist and visual poet from Lewes, DE. His books are White Noir, an Amazon best seller and Con-Way in 4 in 1 #4. Founding/contributing editor of Old Scratch Press and editor of Instant Noodles.