After the Feast
Twelfth Night, the fir tree end-up in a bin
Awaiting there garbage men, needles provoking
A green rebellion at this signal disposition;
The feast all done.
All things receded normal; ‘normal’ being polite
Procrastination, for a Christmas never come
Only the presents and the fireworks showed
The mighty dinners the frantic party rolls;
They came
It may have been indeed there was no stable
Nor manger, nor three wisemen, shepherds, child,
No Mary, Joseph, Anna, Simeon;
No Elsinore
No prince, no play; the history’s brittle, shivers,
Cannot stand up against pied blandishings,
Fat garnished, maladroit misapprobations,
Against the Christmas signs
Lately deceased, nor mourners to lay wreaths
Folk writhe instead, turn plastic shapes, swerve iterations,
Disturbances, distempers; ragbag music shoves them round,
Offsets presence of mind
Their annual surfeit-prandial celebrations
Plumb into groin and gut needs exponentially
Throngs regardless cohabit in cheap intemperance
Blank off entirely sentience and the day
Here for a season remembrance is controverted
Like Lotos Eaters or amnesiacs
Anonymous, where wassails jaunt and skip
And knowing not forwhy
Back now to normal fallen, to a normative dysfunction
The regular junkets, jollies, binge-along weekends,
Deliberately taken blindfold, here is no defence;
Witness unwinds,
Mishap haunts revelries; undoing selves to harms
No means might cultivate the heart’s Chief Comforter
Prevented to ventures higher, haply to aspire
To events, and advents, marvellously more worthy
Swine roll in muck, no difference know than we
Per se know aught of our forsaken souls
Obtain no consolation; absurd of occupation
Aground on shoals
I pity, I do not disdain, nor patronise them,
Their twilit travails parenthetically
Consign, embracket, cache between birth and death;
A pretty pass
Their fazed infatuate procrastinations,
Orphaned, bereaved; their definitive outright loss;
Redemption breathes free as light, Lord, let there be
Fields white for harvest; the labourers set-to
You can also find this poem at our metanomalies: http://metanomalies.com/after-the-feast/
Including my linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6229239699198832640/