Christmas in a Recession Year__Poem

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Christmas in a Recession Year


Oh shit, oh damn,
here’s the thing—I’m broke;
envious of everyone who isn’t.
Imagine only Dickens on your iPod.

But I suppose one might
forego the mandatory tinsel tributes,
those presents frothing with ribbons—
after all, our last few years
weren’t scripted by Ernst Lubitsch
now were they?

Sometimes the best I can muster
while looking for a parking spot
beneath Macy’s or Best Buy
is to not hate my fellows
or visualize them caught pitiably
under a 40 point headline.

Maybe it’s a year for minimums:
fewer munitions transports perhaps,
smaller numbers of caskets
in villages or suburbs.
Can’t we confess to one another
that we’re not in a position
to wrap more cold Moslem children
with bows and holly
and place them beside the fir boughs?
At least this year?


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(Image above is Untitled; Red, Orange, Brown and Black Butterfly #581 (colored pencil on paper) by Mark Grotjahn, 2005. It belongs to the MOMA collection. He lives and works in Los Angeles).

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