Frost bites through Kildare's darkness as I trace
Memories of home in hamon's sweet steam
San Fernando's parols paint sacred space
While Dublin's tinsel scorns my distant dream
Mama's hands once blessed each Christmas dawn
Not these takeaway meals, bland and tame
Through chapel walls, unfamiliar song
Drowns echoes of the midnight mass we claim
Empty streets wind past dormant gardens here
No procession weaves through bamboo gates
No sampaguita scents the winter air
Like incense rising as my lola waits
Eight hours divide the Christmases I know
One wrapped in frost, one crowned in parol glow
-
'TWAS 4PM yesterday, my daughter called and shouted.
"Did you feel the earthquake, Mom?"
Oddly, I did not, though we live near each other.
Last night there were forty aftershocks.
I felt so cheated somehow and I pouted.
Life must need a spark when a earthquake you must feel!
Perhaps become a man, like Caitlyn Jenner, would be more fun.
Wear lovely dresses and my hair in a man-bun?
Oops, cannot do that either?
The Woke-Parol demanded I may not call it that!!
I have the perfect answer.. Binary-Bun!!
Perfect for summer, as I race for Governor of California.
As my faithful followers, cheer me on!
In this most auspicious, political race.
Come on down, if you can you keep pace!!
7/9/2021
Caitlyn Jenner...running to unseat Gavin Newsom,
Known as "Lockdown Louie!"
He comes again this year
With him my buried relatives
I welcome them with warm feelings
All day everyday for a month or more
Uncertain confusing it will be pretty bemusing
I see it everyday now
Video Game Consoles
Dress ups for parties
Christmas amusement parks
first love
Easily calling today
Nostalgia gnawing
Im choked up in tears
Non stop cold rain
On top of the Christmas weather
My Papa's love
Enveloping me
Santa making it cheery
Lola and lolo visiting
Daddy and Mommy chiming in
Youd think it would be a boy
I thought it could have been him
Cruelly mistaken
Can never shake this feeling
Dead family never lost but painful so it seems
Noche Buena on the 24th
Media Noche on New Year
Parol lit all month
Simbang gabi
All hope and peace
Without these we are lost
We must need these
It comes every year
Dousing it wont work
We must need it because we live through it
But then wait, for sweetness
I hold dear to the living
Only solution to shake gloom away
More resplendent than sleeping it off with kerosene
I know that now, sobered, I see it much better