If We Make It Through December

Fifth Day of December

You didn't get the Christmas tree over the weekend
and money's tight for the rest of the week.

Someone burglarized the baby sitter's house this morning,
stole the television and a laptop,
rifled through their lives.

Makes you think about getting a dog,
a gun, an alarm system,
or better yet, of just leaving the door
wide open when there's nobody home.

It's not only Santa who comes down through the chimney
at this time of year.
Now, in between the sugar-plums, we've got you jerks to dream about.

Fourth Day of December

This one was different - a day spent in silent meditation
as part of a stress reduction retreat through my place of work.
I liked the quiet.

One of the exercises we did was the Meditation of Loving Kindness.
You start with a focus on yourself, and you say:

May you be safe.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy
May you have a life of ease.

It's like sending a blessing, a wish, or positive vibes.
Each time I sent one of those statements to myself, it arrived
in the form of a question asking, are you really deserving?

Third Day of December

On the third day he rose again, it is said
and you remember that now because it was so oft repeated then
and that idea was a little easier to swallow before it came out
that the priests were having their way with the children of the flock
and the bishops and the cardinals kept it quiet,
so they all get just lower case titles from me.

I'm off today - what I mean is, not working.

Rum is good, and so is wine, as good as
all those shiny pearls cast before swine.

I'm cooking sausage jambalya from a box right now.
It smells real good, and me and the kids are hungry.
It's just as simple as that.

Story of The Minutemen

Thinking Like That

Second Day of December

Hard and sad to remember that the blues you sing are entirely your own.
Another fight about money, the division of labor, also hard and sad and
real- if a worn thin stereotype - and the most common deal breaker of all.

I'm due at another job, but right now there's the issue of a psychotic kid
who speaks to himself in two voices and sets the shower curtain on fire. He's out there on the run, and we're trying to convince the police to get interested enough to pick him up and bring him back.

There are larger violins than yours that need playing.

The voice in the elevator says, going down.
You don't need her to tell you that.
When you reach the bottom, she says lobby in a sly and sexy manner.
Outside, looking up, the sky is clear, the stars are blurred.