i cAn't TakE IT anymore

Lawrence Ferlenghetti wrote...

"Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagen sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
and German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest of
Second Comings."

This is my sentimental favorite reading in lieu of The Night Before Christmas.

I also love Ferlenghetti, for his "Dog" poem that starts out, "The dog trots freely in the street and sees reality..." It's another lengthy piece but certainly worth reading.

I think Ferlenghetti's first line about Christ climbing down from his bare tree, is almost painfully evocative and poignant.

I really love those writers from the "Beat Generation."

A Good Man is Hard to Find

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" - Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor is one of my favorite writers. She grew up in a small town, and - maybe because of small town characters, or maybe because of small-town happenstance, she realized that anything could happen. A criminal meets a small town family dominated by a mean-spirited grandma. Whooo-wee, Helzapoppin! The crazy grandma leads her family into a confrontation with a criminal who has nothing to loose. The grandma has an epiphany, but it comes, it's simply too late. She realizes (ironically only after she has led her family into a death trap) that the criminal could have been her own son, "Bailey boy." I love this story, especially the part where she smuggles her cat into the car.

Flannery O'Conner. She was born before her time.