BLESS

an abecedarian

by Susan Vespoli

Photo source: DeMilked

Holiday depression feels a lot like regular depression, but it’s triggered by the onset of holidays, holiday get-togethers, large family gatherings, and attending or hosting social events. Holiday depression is similar to “winter blues,” but it may come and go in quick bursts as one event ends and another begins, or it can linger for the days or weeks leading up to and beyond the holiday season. —Cleveland Clinic, December 13, 2023

all the shiny

baubles and brouhaha of

Christmas. Seasonal

depression. Air-filled

enormous plastic Santas bobbing 

front yards. Fairy lights

glittering rooftops. Guy in tight 

holiday pants, knit like a sweater,

in Safeway.

Jubilant crimson poinsettias. My daughter

Kate hospitalized again. Oh,

let it work this time, I hear

myself beseech the sky.

“No,” the

omnipotent ozone replies,

“power.” Oh yeah. Powerlessness. 

Quiet morning sun

rises, turns navy gray into orange

sherbet. I

tilt my head back and there

undulates a 

vibration of grackles 

waving and wafting like winged

eXclamation points, black dots

yodeling squawks, pepper grinder of

zest that, in unison, settle on an electrical wire like musical notes.

Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, Anti-Heroin Chic, ONE ART, Gyroscope Review, Rattle, and other cool spots.

CHRISTMAS COMES

by Peter Neil Carroll

For most of the 19th century, the celebration of Christmas with Christmas trees and gift-giving remained a marginal phenomenon in American society. Most Americans remained skeptical about this new custom. Some felt that they had to choose between older English customs such as hanging stockings for presents on the fireplace and the Christmas tree as proper space for the placing of gifts. It was also hard to find the necessary ingredients for this German custom. Christmas tree farms had first to be created. And ornaments needed to be produced. The most significant steps toward integrating Christmas into popular American culture came in the context of the American Civil War. In January 1863 Harper’s Weekly published on its front page the image of Santa Claus visiting the Union Army in 1862. This image, which was produced by the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast, represents the very first image of Santa Claus. —Thomas Adam, “How Christmas Became an American Holiday Tradition, with a Santa Claus, Gifts and a Tree,” The Conversation, December 6, 2021

Today isn’t my holiday;

neither did the Puritans celebrate Christmas—

only after huddled masses, tempest tost

slipped through Ms Liberty’s golden door

did Santa tumble down the chimney.

 

So what? says the bored look

in my child’s eye. All day we shall suffer

her shame, born to pagan parents,

she will see us through the eyes

of little friends who believe.  

 

Yes, Virginia, today we will dash to church.

Not to pray, mind you, but to see the unseen

wretched refuse lining on cold sidewalks  

and to serve those we will have

with us always, strung out

like light bulbs at St. Anthony’s.

 

At noon, we dollop beans and rice,

turkey, spuds, chopped carrots and greens.

Everyone polite, clean, stiff-backed,

without voice or tune

or jingled bell, only the scrape of chairs,

spoons tinkling in tepid cups.

 

Peter Neil Carroll’s newest collections of poems are Talking to Strangers: Poetry of Everyday Life  (Turning Point, 2022) and This Land, These People: The 50 States (Press Americana) that just won the 2022 Prize Americana. He is currently Poetry Moderator of Portside.org and lives in northern California.

SANTA OUT OF THE CLOSET

by Tricia Knoll 

I come out today after all these years
enduring an insane itch on my chin, that white
beard. I come out because I’ve sustained
the many children who pee in my lap,
the babies who scream because they know
in the deep part of their animal brain
that smells me that I am a woman,
not a man. The North Pole is melting
so fast that even my water-logged
elves can never make enough toys, those friends
who abhor plastic and tell me it will soon clog
even Arctic waters. I’ve hated the sky-high
tinsel ceiling under which I was called,
that I must present as a man, wear boots
without heels or glitter, must conceal every elf
I carry to term like each is merely a bowl full of jelly
wrapped in red velvet and shredded cotton.
I am Mother of North, old North, the one
that called out sled dogs’ yips, held up green
lights of the auroras, the magnetic pole and true north.
I love my neighbors. We chew fat together
and tells stories over candle bowls. We welcome
the traveler. I started as Nicholas’s lover
under the firs and although he hesitated
to call me woman, he knew. I cannot deliver
for your children any more. The ice caves in
under my runners. The oil rigs are closing in.
You will disappear. I hide for 364 days a year.
Now I hide for the other one to find true
peace on earth, good will toward men
and women. Take care of your children.
I have resigned. That is the word for this year:
resign.

Tricia Knoll is a feminist poet who lives in Vermont where the Christmas promises to be white. Where a mink left pawprints in the snow yesterday. She wrote this poem for an old friend who is transitioning to becoming a woman. 

ALT-SANTA 2017

by Richard Hacken

‘Twas the Eve before Yuletide, and throughout the castle
Not one gerbil was verbal, nor causing a hassle;
With our stockings suspended on pegs by the mantle,
Soon Santa would see how they gracefully dangled.
All the young ones were snoring in gentrified bunks,
Watching video dream-streams of sweet glucose junk.
My dear spouse and I sought communion with Morpheus,
Having taken our Ambien for slumber’s euphorias…
When our slackening shorter-term memory awareness
Was quite rudely attacked by loud noise from the terrace.
So we sped from the bed and we peered past the shutters,
Overlooking fatigue and dead leaves in the gutters.
Freshly frozen precip was lit up by the moon,
Granting clear luminescence almost like high noon…
When some black SUVs bolted into our view:
Armor-plated V-8s, but not one caribou.
From the middlemost window our eyes were assailed
By the sight of Alt-Santa—with his orange ducktail.
Verbosity surged with some grunts, lies and screams,
And he verbally signaled, with the accent of Queens:
Now, Donnie! Now, Kushner! Ivanka and Eric!
On, Sessions! Melania! DeVos and Rick Perry!
Wait a minute! Where’s Tiffany?
Now, Tillerson, Mattis, Now Zinke and Chao!
On, Mnuchin, Mike Pence, Wait a minute…
Where’s Ben Carson now?
Where’s Comey, where’s Flynn? Where are Priebus and Bannon?
They had useless traits that I had to abandon.
Where’s Scaramucci? Where the heck is Sean Spicer?
I’d have kept all these people if they defended me nicer.
It’s time that the Senate repeals and replaces
Every few days just a few of these faces.”
But that wasn’t all: he continued to chatter
About changes he’d make and how much they would matter.
Yuletide was losing and now it would win!
Yes, he would make Christmastime so great again!
“I’m the greatest,” he said, “of all Santas, I promise,
There’s been no Santa greater, if I want to be honest.”

“For too long it’s been Santa who subsidized
The presents and goodies for all of you guys.
Such liberal nonsense is hard to defend,
And so such generosity now has to end.
We’ll keep shipping the presents and building the toys,
But who’s going to now pay for it? The girls and the boys.
Our Department of Toys on Non-Discounted Clearance
Will be happy to debit accounts from their parents.
Our Department of Homeland-Spun Sugar-Plum Canes
Will be headed by Dr. Alt-Saccharin Gaines,
Who’s qualified, ‘cause she’s a 10, a good looker,
And an enemy of all things resembling sugar.
Our Department of Christmas’s Really True Meaning
Has a new secretary named Skepticus Leening,
Who has promised reducing bureaucratic red tape
Till Christmas can be all dissolved in a lake.”

And thus on and on further the Alt-Santa spake,
Till for so many reasons I started to quake.
I was so good and ready to be Doubting Thomas,
When he said one last time, “If I want to be honest…”

So he heard us exclaim as we turned from his face:
“You're not a real Santa. You're just a disgrace.
You’ll soon be gone. You’ll be put in your place.”


Richard Hacken is a poet-librarian
and a firm contrarian
to the reigning vulgarian.

FIFTY-FIVE DEGREES

by Laura Rodley

USA Today

What do I do, what can I do,
in the face of global warming?
I paint my house, cover holes,
burn less oil, wear sweaters,
give praise for the fifty degrees
to get one more coat of paint on
before we’re clobbered with snow,
give thanks for the large moth
that slept by my doorway last night,
forgetting how to knock,
all moths welcome, birch moths,
lunas, crecopias, though not
clothes moths; I climb on the roof,
slather paint like shaving cream
on the face of my house, work it
in, lubricate each cedar siding board,
hoping such a shield will require less oil,
hoping for peace on earth,
hoping Santa will find his way
in the dark with no snow to reflect
the light of his lanterns.


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.

HAPPY HOLIDAZE

Poem by Charles Frederickson

Graphic by Saknarin Chinayote 

Yo-ho-ho-hoping Yule N-joy
Sheepish Fleece Navidad ho-ho-hokum humbug
Hot & Spicy zesty seasoned 1% greedings
Volunteering help to (s)ain’t nickeless needy

Human jelly beings suffering tinsilitis
Jingle bellyache noggin migraine bon-bon
Noel nutty crunchy cheery cherry fruitcakes
Nutcracker God Jul sweet Swede crumbs

I scream for eyes crème-dela-crème
Popsicles fudgesicles creamsicles dreamsicles multiversity
Unisex frosted ginger-bred tinkering boy-toys
Sno-man is a dessert island

Web-addicted Generation-Xmas XS Yes Icon
Computer wonderland wreck the malls
Oh .com all ye faithful
Freeze a jolly good Facebook fella

Santamental Journey X-rated Xmas fave pet
Santa-paws point-setter yellow snow frost bite
Dependent clauses vertically challenged low elf-esteem
Gnome sweet gnome workshop

Sleigh traded for Holly Davidson
Modem icicle built for 8
Comet Cupid Donner Blitzen Vixen
Dasher Dancer Prancer naughty Rudeolph

Gluelicke Wienachen Germs speaking North Polish
Ooh-la-la-de-dah dandruff flakes o-o-o tan N-bomb
Uncaged turtle doves eco-friendly green peace
Happy ever laughter miles of smiles

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 .

WORLD APART

by Kit Zak






Here in this world apart
from Syria’s shoeless kids freezing in Lebanon’s snow
we recheck our Santa’s list
detailed requests from our children
who track every advance in I-phones.

Here in this world apart
from tent cities not just in Bekaa Valley
but in our own hometowns
we push the thermostat up two degrees
then rush to our waiting car.

Here is this world apart
from the country and cities of Syria
where the slaughter does not cease
one hundred and ten thousand and counting
we plan our holiday entertainment.

Here in this world apart
eyes shut to our hungry and sick
and the sixty thousand vets searching shelter
we close our minds to thoughts of oligarchy
believing still in a country with justice for all.


Kit Zak lives with her husband in Lewes,  DE. She has most recently had poems published in an anthology about motherhood as well as in the following journals: Avocet: A Nature Journal, The Blue Collar  Review,  and A Time of Singing.

AMY’S BAKING COMPANY: NOT ENDORSED BY SANTA

by Rhiannon Thorne





On Saturday, I decided to sate my curiosity,

drive the half hour over to Scottsdale to gawk:

Amy's Baking Company, closed

after their distasteful run-in with Ramsey.
I was alternating between giggles and voyeuristic glee

at the closed sign hanging smugly in the window,

when up pulled a late model family van,

off-white and inconspicuous.
The driver's eyes twinkled, his cheeks were rosy,

as he leaned towards the passenger side and said:

“They deserved everything they get, and I'm Santa,”

he chuckled, “well, at Christmastime.”


Rhiannon Thorne’s work has appeared/is forthcoming in vox poetica, Your Daily Poem, Third Wednesday, and The Midwest Quarterly. She also co-edits the publication cahoodaloodaling with poet-in-arms Kate Hammerich.