“After Christmas”

c.2020 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-20)

After Christmas by days

Sitting here in a Lite beer haze

Pizza baked and gone

Home team is a loser

The game was a bruiser

Broken up with COVID as the maul

So glad I am for alcohol

Popping tops

A headache that won’t stop

Down down, let me drown

I wear a frown

Loyalty is the death of me

True to my word

Cheater, I don’t want to meet her

I’m a lifer not a leader

Bent by my needs

Not one to languish in ecstasy

I give a cheer

For wings and pizza

And a pitcher of beer

I might be a wreck

But on the crux of a flyspeck

I’ll turn toward the sunset

See the gun-sight, take aim 

A solitary target in the game

A circuit in the mainframe

Loss leader

By my propane heater

Staying warm in the night

While my foes engage in a firefight

Destroy and delight

The holiday has passed away

Santa on his sleigh

Mrs. Claus

With high heels and lingerie feels

My corner looks empty now

Without those evergreen boughs

Snow flakes and potato pancakes

Bring me cheer

But I wish that St. Nicholas

Could tarry here

Dark is the night

On the day after day after Christmas

No one waiting with us

I took the bus

From Painesville to Parkman

Sore to the floorboards

Sad to close the door

On another season of joy

Another encounter with the hoi polloi

I know the clock carries on

But deep in my heart

I wish for another verse to this song

One more happenstance

One more dance

The festive trees make me feel complete

Not so alone

As I am in my home

Pondering the prancing poulterer

With his rack of fowl

And a loosened cowl

Staring straight up into the sky

Fraught with dreams gone awry

Faster, Pussycat

The day after yesterday

Makes me feel less than great

Expired

Bald-tired

Quagmired

Sliding into the ditch

A poor, stupid son-of-a-bitch

Curses cast

Into the distant past

Dunked in hot oil

Wearing a hat of tinfoil

Buried in virgin soil

Fast asleep

With a Yuletide wreath

On the door

Green and red

Colors of the spectrum

A drumbeat and a guitar strum

Alone after the holiday

Why did it go away?

Joy on Earth

A sentiment seldom heard

Except on a day in December

Why not spread the vibe

Like a jacked-up reindeer ride

For weeks and months

Let it rip and run

Fun, fun, fun

Since Father C took the T-Bird away

Rims off, up on blocks

Sweater weather

I’ve never felt better

Quill from a feather

Gonna write me a letter

“Dear disciples of the Arctic shelf

I’m feeling lonely without Noel!”

Lost and laboring

In need of an awakening

Free from the debris

Ready to bleed

Did someone notice the dark of night

when Santa has finished his trans-world flight?

It seems a deeper shade of black

Since Kris Kringle parked his sliding hack

My abode has gone cold

I feel old

Just one more night of Christmas lights

Would cheer and charm

Keep me safe from harm

But that moment has passed

And I sit here

A foolish ass

Raising my glass

Phone on the charger

I wish that it were

So easy to juice-up my jive

Make myself come alive

On this blustery night

Winter wonder

Plans put asunder

Friends six-feet-under

Six feet distant

Above the loam, this is our existence

Masked and tasked

With riding out the storm

Staying safe, keeping warm

Looking at the dark corner

Where my Christmas tree

Stood, so briefly

“Be glad” I say

“Do not mourn that it went away”

Another trip around the sun

A season done

Now it’s onward

To New Year’s Day

Written on my iPhone SE