IF BOXING DAY BEATS YOU UP by David Erdos - Poem 22 from THE PEOPLES PRISON
Poem 22 from THE PEOPLES PRISON
IF BOXING DAY BEATS YOU UP, or, THEY PUT THE NO IN NOEL
How was it for
you? They once asked, when talking
About sex, or
wartime. Today, it is Christmas that serves
The question I
pose to your air. My neighbours made
My Xmas plate,
for which I was incredibly grateful,
But what have
the current times fed us through
Swallowing the
germ beside care? It seems
To have been
everywhere recently, like a snake
Coiled within
Yorkshire Pudding. Across British
Landscape, the
enveloping trail shadows all.
As your
visiting numbers scaled down, and you ate
With your core
close beside you, do you think
Adam’s first
bite of the apple bred a flavour
That stained
God’s recall? Someone I have loved
For so long
fights for life and Covid has complicated
Her struggle.
Another’s fragile heart in a ward
Saw pain
worsen as she couldn’t see her kids
For two weeks.
So, did your Christmas Pudding
Sixpence feel
slashed, and have we all become
Tenapenny?
Spare change dropped by spendthrifts
Who store the lifesaving
funds we all seek.
But I hope
your presents all shone. Its presence
I seek –
different spelling – both yours when I see you
And hers, who
I won’t. And so the separation goes on
Towards an
uncertain time we send prayers to.
As if wishes
were weapons and loneliness could be
Taken off,
like a coat. This year they put the no
In Noel, but
the yes of yesterday shimmers.
It lit my
thoughts as night took me, but also
Ensured I’ve
not slept. I suppose I was clawing
The air for
those I’m not close to. But only in flesh.
Here in
spirit, it is for the gift of the ghost
That I’ve
wept. And so, we offer our tiny hymns
To all hers;
those of us lost within our own lounges,
Searching for
home while still in it, because our
Idea of home
isn’t this. It is in a former pride
And a past
that contained a different coming
Together and
where celebration of the Christ
Who came, or
is still to come spurns fate’s kiss.
That deathly
peck we’ve now shared, as further
Sacrifice
happens. May the indulgence of old
Breed
insurgence and may your spreading table
Stand filled.
The borders will close every day.
Next year who
will permit Santa’s visa? And what
Will he bring?
Fresh invasion? Maybe we’ll have to
Turn that
table up, as a shield. If Boxing day beats
You up, then
even on the ropes I think of you.
Through the
blood and the barter and the fracture
Of light, a
last trick. As I see this woman. My mum.
And my Dad as well.
Friends as visions. Warmth
In the
darkness that turns depression’s blue
To hope’s
lick. As with a blanket, that touch
Will warm a
current cold despite sunshine.
If you are ill
sink beneath it but know you’ll surface
Soon as fate
twists, around the measured rhymes
I connect and
which you will also find with each other.
Would that
these words could cure sickness
And that each
written page healed once read.
It can’t of
course, but we try as recovery
Becomes struggle.
And we honour all loved ones,
And mourn for
those we cannot see, and the dead.
But the dead
are in our corner. They know.
They become
our coach. Feel the flannel.
They wipe the
tears and wounds wasted
And allow us
all to go on. And so the bell rings
Once more. I
stumble to my feet, fight my shadow
And I think of
you and next Christmas
And of what
and where we’ll be.
Sing that song.
David Erdos, December 26th 2020
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