Wednesday 24 December 2014

Poems for Christmas Eve

The first of our Christmas poems. Happy Christmas!



One Wise Man

His missus sighed, “I suppose you’re
off chasing stars again this year?  
Where to this time?”
“Bethlehem.”
“And where the heck is that?”
“Two full-moons west of here.”
“Well I never. Better hire
a herd of camels, take a good
supply of dates and presents.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh
are quite in vogue this year.”
“Gold! Camels! Presents!
Giving them away!
Not much profit there, I’d say.”
“Exactly! So tell the other three they’re
going on their own this year. Let’s holiday
away together – just you and me;
I hear The Valley of the Kings has
great weather this time of the year.”

“I’ll go and pack my dear.”


Mike Lee


Walking in Woods on Christmas Eve

Nothing is missing
in this forest of pine trees
look, Christmas presents

 Johanna Boal 



Jingle Bells

Every Father Christmas in the world rocked up,
to protest against the commercialisation
of Christmas,
faces upturned to the heavens,
pleading for some respite from mock reindeers

in shopping malls,
and flashy toys, baubles and billowing cheeks
of cherubs blowing silver trumpets,
past which rivers of people flow
on escalators, to plastic Utopias

“We love the Christmas carols,
but we feel like stuffed turkeys in our red garb
and caps,” chanted one Father Christmas,
while the others chorused:
“Enough is enough, we are on strike.”

On the way to the protest point
each Father Christmas
was given a wand by a real fairy
who said her place had been usurped
by gaudy imitations

on top of artificial trees
They had never been on a protest march,
so could Father Christmas
wave a magic wand and turn
each bogus fairy into a frog

“We will do that and more,”
sang the Father Christmas strikers
”We will turn every bright bauble
and piece of tinsel that we see,
into a partridge in a pear tree.”

Clarissa McFairy

I counted the cakes I’d made:

Rich fruit cakes, iced and decorated with flowers
red roses, delicate yellow freesias,
open daisies, from the fortieth to
the sixty fourth of my parents’ anniversaries.

Christmas cakes, rich and fruity, or apple light
 for every year of my marriage,
including the first we left in the oven
while we went back to bed, letting it burn.

Novelty birthday cakes,
owls, witches, castles, cars, a big red dice,
 football pitches complete with players
I forgot to return to my friend,
and underneath, layers of sponge
filled with jam, or gooey chocolate cake, or gingerbread.

A hundred scones once for cream teas, at school
 flap jacks, brownies for the fair, a cake
 for each cub and scout trip
my boys made ‘so they’d have something from home’ –
the leader’s words.

 Still to count the weekday
cup cakes or the Sunday treats I called a halt,
went on strike. Said that’s it.
The kitchen’s closed to cake.

It lasted for two whole years and then
I went back in, made a Christmas cake,
marzipaned it, iced it, then armed with food dyes:
red, blue, yellow, green, silver, gold
 I splashed the surface with colour
like Jackson Pollock.

Susan Jane Sims


1 comment:

  1. I've been looking for some good short Christmas poems to include in my list of favorites and these are very nice. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete