A Christmas Out Of The Past

There was some talk about imposing at
a Christmas table,
I couldn't be free of that.
But my bones were not with the festivities,
only with fondling memories,
time's own promised refuge.
In the brewed heat of a blue hustler
with utter sweat
I danced the highway of embers
into a small room.
The tiny Christmas tree somehow set
like an ancient raven
as I peered into a dark roaming evening
as if at a Monastery.

The elves were not alive.
The curious mirth came from within
my heart,
as if it were a day beset with sad clowns.
I looked ghostly sure that the time
I spent with books and letters
would create Eurydice's echo.
I rushed into the beauty of too many
whores, women capsizing with pretty packages,
women strange to me.

I was not expecting to feast with a man.
I posted.
The prayers I didn't hear.
Heard the public telephone
and an impish minotaur romp the streets
at the window,
transistor radio whine.

Yet the glorious sounds of Christmas
were joining us together . . . he and I.
I could heard the Bells of the Church
questioning my loneliness.
Haunting me, calling to me.
I had hoped he would come to visit.
There would be joy.
I would feel inner peace.

It rained. It did not snow.
I dreamed of a pink mulberry Parisian
parasol summer and how
his umbrella might suddenly keep me dry
on a chilling walk through Schenley Park.