Harry Calhoun

 

Harry Calhoun:  Published at odd poetry whistlestops for the past 30 years. New chapbook, Retreating Aggressively into the Dark. More at http://harrycalhoun.net

 

December

by Harry Calhoun

At last, the end again, that I’ve never known in life.

The Christmas cactus blossoms sweetly

and stupidly at Thanksgiving, not knowing

its place and time. The solstice is not far

and afterward the days will grow longer.

It is a time of mixed blessings. A time to drink

old cognacs and aged port for the mellowness

of years and for an excuse to put the years

in the dark corners where they belong. Time

for the firewood and the fireplace, the warmth

and dust. A flannel shirt that rots in a corner of the closet,

or just sits forgotten until you haul it out

for its yearly winter duty. You wear it when you walk

your beloved dog before January clasps you

forever in its chill.  Listen to Tchaikovsky’s “Winter Dreams,”

count the sparse snowflakes falling, write poems

and try to set mood while telling the truth. Walk the dog

so your wife doesn’t have to. Enjoy the brief abundant leaves

on your lawn because it is their time.

Yes, December. It is that time.

 

 

The new day seeps in through the cracks of the cold the fireplace didn’t burn off last night

by Harry Calhoun

Lord, I’m not awake yet, yet I sit here, 40 foggy degrees

feeling my marrow chilled like a refrigerated soul

a light in the post house

a post in the light house

the fog leaking all over the morning

the morning dripping all over the fogginess

dark etched with light and drubbed with mist

like a Currier and Ives print

I go inside by the back door

and after a brief segue to my nice warm house,

go outside on the lawn and pick Monday

morning’s thin paper off the dewy lawn

covered with reedy leaves

 

 

The Christmas tree that wasn’t

by Harry Calhoun

The Christmas tree that wasn’t

is burning a hole in the living room,

a hole of absence, and the lights

that weren’t cast darkness

over some oasis of desolation.

These are fragile days, snap-cold

days, easily tipped into drunkenness

and despair, days when a tree

might lighten our souls like a cigarette

lit against the bleak pre-dawn,

or the touch of a warm hand

in the insomniac sleepwalk toward morning.

It is sad being without family or reason.

It feels like a burrowing rodent in a dark hole.

Give us a tree, deep shallow shimmering light

to sustain us in this season.

 

 

e-mail: http://us.mc1802.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=HarryC13@aol.com
Web site: http://www.harrycalhoun.net/
My blog: http://harryc13.wordpress.com/
Pig in a Poke magazine: http://piginpoke.com/