Your Damaged Decorations 4.0
December 2013 It’s beginning to look a lot Gridville- everywhere I go 12/25/2013
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Her Merry Christmas
Somebody has a Mom
Maybe sister, perhaps Aunt
that is sitting out there tonight
wishing you would walk in the door
of the kitchen,
the barroom,
the bedroom
and give her just one good reason
to believe/forget the world’s cold shoulders
and hard edges and all that shit she has had to eat over
all the years might have meant something
more than the FWB de-jour or an
ex- husband that barely speaks to her
the old friends that seldom call
not to mention the children that
ignore/take her for granted.
She’s listening to the Christmas music
sitting in the colored lights with a glass of wine
the tears are barely an after-thought
as she wonders why you never showed up
in her life and perhaps if you did once
why she ever,
ever let you go.
Attitude House 12/99
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Christmas Visit Snapshot
Nearly noon along the Hudson
Brilliant light about
descending rust wine
iron crane wench hook
set in blue and white midday relief.
McNamara’s daughter isn’t coming
Johnny in Singapore
You sit in here alone
listening to the bartender
tell that the pickpockets are
using box cutters this year
up on 86th and Lexington.
Back in the Big Red Mountain booth
way downtown beaten worn linoleum
I’ll call you from the payphone
in the back near the pool table
while listening to the killer jukebox
resurrect Spike Jones singing,
You always hurt the one you love.
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From Attitude House 12/99
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Home for the Holidays
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Can you find any words left
for the long runway and this familiar foot rest.
All day miles melted past
and you were able to sit still silently propelled
just reading and taking notes.
Your big idea of time off.
Now before the last leg of the trip
you heel toe briefly at rest
before pushing on the sidewalk square
with an older eye.
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Attesting to this as I walk in the door
overheard from the local boys over the pool table
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“Here comes the professor…..
wonder where his footnotes point tonight?”
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So you take your place at the bar and
drop a tentative temporary anchor
But……
always remembering, remembering
where you came from.
Greenport Christmas 98
Attitude House 2000
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He’s Dreaming of a White Supremacist Christmas
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Just about a day before Christmas
early evening quiet barroom
couple of regulars, off-duty bartenders
gentle snow at the window, soft music low in the background.
Easy holiday season conversation
locals drifting in & out between Christmas shopping
to get warm, grab a cold one, maybe a bite to eat.
In the middle of the sparse crowd sits this guy.
Beat up peaked ball cap, barn coat and muddy rubber boots
smoking alone.
Bartenders all dolled up in her Christmas dress.
She even had a slight hint of glitter on her cheeks.
She’s flushed with excitement.
Big night later, annual staff party.
Just a little girl in Christmas morning still
peaking out of her eyes.
It’s drift and rift quiet banter time
between a few friends.
Every once in awhile our boy in the middle lets loose
with an unsolicited comment.
Like: Fuckin sucks, I hate all this Christmas crap.
(While staring straight ahead)
He’s getting expressly ignored.
Not getting a rise out of anybody.
Figures he’ll give another shot.
Fuckin assholes, fuck the lights, fuck this time of year.
Fuck that Jew bastard hippie carpenter, what bullshit,
if he walked in here tonight, I’d personally nail him to
that fuckin tree again with his own fuckin hammer.
Regular A shrugs.
He remarks, Yeah it ain’t Christmas till somebody dies.
Followed on the heels by regular B who counters with,
Yeah my grandfather was killed by a drunk driver a
couple of days before New Years back in
Girl behind the bar pales visibly.
Door opens.
Regular C walks in the bar and announces,
well that’s it she wants a divorce and the doctor
tells me today that my stool sample came back positive.
Christ pour me a shot…..hell make that double and
while you’re at get these guys something……Merry
Fuckin Christmas.
Meanwhile laughing boy sitting in the middle of the
bar is staring at the regulars with his mouth open.
Scoops up his change and smokes and heads for the
door muttering over his shoulder.
Man what a bunch of fuckin sick losers, I’m going
somewhere where they know how to party, I mean
after all it is goddamn Christmas.
Regulars A, B, C. and bartender sit in silence.
Finally B goes, Anybody know that guy?
C pushing his shot glass toward the bartender
says, I think he’s the guy that plays Santa at KRAPMART.
musta had a tough day at work.
Yeah…. Regular A offers philosophically
the holidays can be rough on us all.
From Attitude House 12/00-2/01
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Nor’easter for Christmas
(for Monk)
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And he started
talking in
back alley doorways
with a mug full
of parking lot teeth
as the gale wound
up her fist from
the east and positively
dared him to jump
across four feet of lapping blackness
from the aft deck
to the floating dock
gleaming slick in salt water ice
to square of that drag line.
Of course he did it.
Now the red and green
of the old Claudio
liquor sign flickers,
buzzes and glows
around his head like
a sucker punch halo
as the flags up on top
off the poles
sport boners.
Of course
He did.
From The Terrible Now
Rubbereden 
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