Visions of sugarplums? NOT

day after Christmas--
full-page ads from retailer
and car dealer
[PL -12. 26. '14]
~~

From Baghdad: (two found poems)

in what's left
of our town
you can't tell
who's 'friend,'
and who's 'foe'


refugee child
asked Santa
for a red dress
but he delivered
purple. She's happy.
[PL -  ideas from M Hennessy-Fiske, LA Times]
~~

On Christmas
Sierra Leoneans
staying put--
fear of Ebola
rampant
[PL - found from article by S. Gbandias, Bloomberg News]
~~
~~

Poems from other Decembers, from other poets, too

laden cedar branches
made silent by the snow
nothing at all to hear

[from the late Dion O'Donnol's every day living, 1997]
~~

Christmas shoppers;
into the blind beggar's cup
a silent snowflake

[Dorothy McLaughlin, from our flip calendar, connecting our houses, 1997]
~~

looking up
from my Christmas reading~
thicker icicles

[PL - from Poems for December, 2002]
~~

the full kettle's
garbled whistle~
twenty-two degrees

[PL - from Dynamic December, 2003]
~~

last of the pound cake
I baked for two parties
is now my breakfast

[PL - from rising to the top, 2012]
~~

Auntie's first Christmas
   not only an orphan
   but now a widow

[PL - from a branch of red leaves, 2005]
~~~
~~~

pittypatter: Advent 2014

~Advent Wreath-Google images~

 

 

Advent: 2014

(an Octo sequence)

It’s Advent—twenty-fourteen now--

too many years since last I wrote.

 

I fill my time with handbells, choir

 

--requiring diligence--and bills

 

and cats and house and med refills.

I fill my time with handbells, choir.

Too many years since last I wrote,

 

it’s Advent—twenty-fourteen now.

~~

I used to write an Advent verse

each year, till life got in the way--

 

especially after I retired.

 

I penned one novel, then one more.

 

Activities came to the fore,

especially after I retired.

Each year, till life got in the way,

I used to write an Advent verse.

~~



I hereby vow to take more time

to celebrate the Advent Child,

to live expectantly each day

 

as if the second-coming’s near;

 

make ready, leave no room for fear.

To live expectantly each day,

to celebrate the Advent Child,

 

I hereby vow to take more time.

 

PL - 2014

 

 

December poems

street signs
at Frozen and Geyer
growing icicles
~~
muzzling a Magi--
they set up the frat lawn's
Nativity scene
~~
blue-glass mobile
chiming in December wind--
student in short sleeves
~~
second
son's
fifty-
second
birthday
~~
Hal Borland:
"December's the price
we pay for June"
~~
filling the feeder
and knocking holes in the ice
the bluebirds return
~~
~~
PL - dba lovepat press