A half full bus of people who drew the short straw
The week between Christmas and New Year's,
All off to work, hungover with Holiday,
Counting the days until the world turns
And normal becomes normal once again.

Christmas Eve, waiting for the kids,
The tree ablaze with lights, a holiday dinner
With our grown daughters and our son,
A fine honeyed ham as the centerpiece;
Afterwards we'll exchange gifts,
Ooh and aah, laugh and hug,
Bid each other a fine holiday come morning,
Then send our children on their way
So the two of us can relax at last
And collapse into each other's arms.

A very religious, polite and studious bomber who strove
To live his daily life in harmony with the Quran;
A brilliant boy who took his religion seriously,
Torn between his desires and lowering his gaze,
Acutely aware of Western customs and worldliness
As the privileged son of a wealthy Nigerian banker;
A student of his religion who could no longer share meals
With a mother and father who do not worry about whether
The food on their table is permitted by the Sharia;
And now, an all but convicted terrorist, who will discover
That his life in prison will be more rigid than his beliefs
And far more dangerous than any bomb
He might ever think of hiding in his underwear again.

We spend our lives stepping over
The butts and ashes of discarded cigarettes,
Torturing ourselves with the remnants of distant memories,
Unable to change past actions or forget them,
Painting the moment's ragged landscape
With faded colors long past their expiration date.

Candles burning on the fireplace mantle,
Rain falling from the dull gray sky,
The presents are all opened,
The wrapping paper scattered,
Anticipation has been replaced
Withth satiated relaxation
As our bodies drift reflexively
Unstuck from space and time.

Somewhere Pendragon
Raises Excalibur above the stone,
Somewhere the Baby Jesus
Suckles from his mother's breast;
Tomorrow a young woman
Will be the first to give birth on Mars,
Her grandchildren will live and die
Never knowing the Earth;
And somewhere come Christmas morning,
On a world far, far away,
Someone will find these words,
Well wrapped and brightly ribboned,
Underneath their winter evergreen.

My friend was shot dead
In the harness of his parchute
As he drifted above the battlefield,
As he floated to the earth
That would soon be his grave
Back in my war to end all wars.

I was not a physical participant,
Even then, few of us were,
But we were all quite loud
About those who might go,
Expert in our righteous opinion
How our war should be won,

Especially if it didn't involve us
Or any of our family or our friends;
But my friends, my classmates went
And some never returned at all,
And some came back with broken bodies
And souls that never smiled again.

But they still would go and go again
To fight our country's battles, no question;
The problem was never in the going for my friends,
Only how long, how often, where and when,
So I sent them off with a smile and a kiss
And greeted them with tears at the end.

Post-Christmas before the New Year,
Everyone in recovery,
Airplane bombing, Redskin's losing,
Big whoop-de-fucking-do.

The President and the Coach may lose
Their jobs, their compentency is in question,
The season already has gone on too long,
The fans at their televisions are restless.

A cruise along the Potomac,
All the women listening to all the men,
A holiday party upon the river,
Every jack one of us in attendance
-- White, Black, Brown,
        Red, Yellow and Olive --
A regular smorgasboard of bloodlines
Dancing our way to beige
One entropic coupling at a time.

Snow, more snow, then snow,
A foot and a half in December;
Not the four feet
That buried me in the Poconos,
Not the monstrous snowfalls
Of the Sierra or the Rockies,
But enough to bring Washington
To its knees for a week
As we remind everyone
We really are a southern city
And it's just our manners
We get from up North;
Never assume that
Deep in our heart of hearts,
We are anything if not inefficient.

To Elvis who is 75,
A handfull of uppers
And a fried peanut butter sandwich
(With a ripe banana, of course).

It's alright, Mama, he did what he did
And he did it damn good until the moment
He began to believe in his own legend
And threw his music all away.