Christmas poem: Burning the donkey
December 22, 2024
We were suspicious from the start.
What decent man brings a wife
pregnant as a pudding
into a new country, unless
he wants the child to be
a kind of hidden penny,
a nice little earner?
She was obviously mad,
whispering something about
a visitation, from behind
an annoying, coy blue veil.
We weren’t sure if she meant
secret police (who are unbelievably
common, in the places these people
supposedly come from,
breeding like cane-toads
in their vivid crops of lies).
She mentioned flashes and wings.
As I said, a few bats short of an attic.
He even admitted that he wasn’t sure
if the kid was his, or at least
that’s what we think he said.
It was hard to source a proper interpreter,
if, indeed, the language was real,
rather than a melange of all things foreign,
stirred like another pudding,
to be tongued off a soon-to-be silver spoon.
Mike said he thought Aramaic
was a perfume for men,
and we all had a good laugh,
but there was absolutely no whiff of that,
I can assure you.
It turned out to be a boy,
born in necessary seclusion,
though Mike said all the lights
turned themselves on
the moment the kid drew breath.
That was undeniably weird,
and a further example
of their lack of thanks
expressed in clever sabotage.
Lawyers even brought in presents,
breaching clear regulations.
Their poor excuse for a boat,
which had evaded all detection
and wound its feral ways to Darwin
despite navy, barnacles, tides and policy,
overladen with stink and sick and
God knows what else,
was towed back out and burnt.
All in all it was nothing remarkable,
although my skin is itching,
itching like an alien.
A nice little souvenir, no doubt about it.
The press should really leave it alone,
and focus on some bigger issues －
a Test begins tomorrow.
PS Cottier
This retelling of the nativity story, set in modern day immigration detention and narrated by a guard, was first published in Verity La in 2017, and later in my book Utterly.
“And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
(Illustration by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo)
Tuesday poem: Burning the donkey
December 19, 2017
This one is a Christmas poem, just published at Verity La.
The poem is about reugees. It’s important to remember those excluded and shunned all year, but it’s particularly pertinent to Christmas, when God took on the form of a child born in a stable. The outsider became the centre of the story.
There’s another poem at the site about climate change and specifically, the Great Barrier Reef. An enormous number of future refugees will be fleeing the effects of climate change. And destroying the lives of other species is inexcusable, too.
God bless us, every one! Have a wonderful Christmas.
Christmas Poem: Forecast
December 21, 2016
Forecast
It’s 12 degrees in Bethlehem
right now, a satellite says.
Cold, but not cold enough
to freeze a woman, kill a man,
or icicle a donkey.
But babies are mere hope,
hope wrapped in folds of flesh,
and that needs relief from wind.
Even 12 degrees will bite
a baby with teeth of blue,
suck out crimson hope
faster than any ghoul.
So came a shed, some hay,
the pleasant fug of cattle.
And god, mewling in the grain,
seeding time, forever.
It’s 12 degrees in Bethlehem,
a satellite says, just now.
PS Cottier
The funny thing is that when I searched for the weather in Bethlehem, I was first directed to the United States where there’s another place by that name.
Have a wonderful Christmas and see you next year (through my special reverse-blog glasses).
Ring out, wild bells by Tennyson
December 22, 2015
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (from ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’)
I would have sworn that I had posted this before, but I can’t find it. Doesn’t matter anyway, as it is a lovely piece that deserves frequent reading. The repetition of the word ring is quite remarkable. William Blake is always good, too.
We’re yet to reach the rule of the larger heart or the kindlier hand, and the times seem pretty cold, even here in a very hot Australia. But Christmas is a time to hope for renewal. As is Easter, but let’s not get head of ourselves…
Best wishes to everyone reading, and Merry Christmas from your ex-atheist blogger, as we move towards 2016.
Ramblings (misc.) Including a Tuesday Poem
November 24, 2015
Just when it has begun to dawn (as opposed to dawning to begin) that next week contains some of a month called December, I see that next year is already totally stuffed with events, like a Christmas stocking full of jolly wee gifts. (I would be quite happy with a stocking full of miniatures of vodka, rum and gin. But Santa never heeds my blog written hints. Either that or his historic sponsorship by Coca-Cola has made him renounce alcohol, the capitalist running dog.) Jason Nahrung has a very useful list of next year’s literary festivals on his blog:
Hilariously, the Adelaide Writers Week dates are set until 2019, which is so redolent of 5 year plans as to be practically North Korean. Though the wine in South Australia is undoubtedly better (listen, Santa, Goddamn you!) and they have luxuries like food, too. If you know of any other events, let Jason know!
Just had my first poem published in the Australian Poetry Journal, called “Secondary ghosts”. In his introduction, editor Michael Sharkey touches on ecopoetry, birds, and questions of popular appeal/playfulness. It seems to me, on first reading, that the volume is chockas, if not chookers, with winged things (my words, not Michael’s). Hence my arranging the journal next to by embroidered cockatoo cushion (that is a most playful bird) on a chair which is covered with a fabric called Virgin Lawn. (No kidding.) The colours of the beautiful cover of the APJ (painting by Lise Temple) reminded me of the chair. And, as the person who wrote the ghost poem, here’s a little poem about that poem:
I do the ghosts
In all their unseen glory,
or whingey postlife
neediness, rattling,
booing or ruining feasts.
Which is not to say
that some feasts don’t need ruining.
Which is not to say
that a good scare is a bad thing.
Yes, birds flutter
through pages like
olive leaves. Some simply
go away, evermore,
but so many leave
droppings, and so we
put them into poems;
poems of soar or seediness.
But there are other
gnarlier alternatives,
neither here nor there.
So I do the ghosts.
P.S. Cottier
This is all getting a tad intertextual, which is when Santa leaves a new pen next to the list of gifts (which read Vodka, Gin, Rum) after amending it to read New Pen.
Tuesday Poem is going through something of a reconfiguration at the moment, but I certainly intend to keep posting on Tuesdays. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets by pressing here.
Next week there will be fewer brackets.
PS Cottier 