Category: Published Poems

There’s a War On Christmas!
It’s always in the news
But I survey our world
And I’m a bit confused . . .

At Walmart in early October
Back-to-School shelves are pushed aside
One measly aisle for Halloween
Yet Christmas lights storewide . . .

Return in early November
To a Garden Center rife with trees
Poinsettias three-for-ten dollars
“Holy-day deals” on TV’s . . .

If there’s a War On Christmas
(And it sure does make the news)
Then how are we so inundated?
Christmas items suffuse . . .

The catalogues start mid-September
Reminding of gift obligations
The commercials commingle football
With warnings of missed new sensations . . .

Before one’s purchased a turkey
Those news blitzes begin
How to coordinate a shopping bonanza
For that big Black Friday win . . .

Still we hear there’s a War On Christmas
Relevant tidbits hit the 5 o’clock news . . .
And in this shopaholic world
I’d say such news is true!

Not little baby Jesus,
Nor his miraculous birth,
Not good will toward men,
Nor peace on earth, but

Shopping mall stampedes!
Forget the stuffing and SCRAM!
Amazon’s got Free Shipping!
Get a Mercedes! Buy gem-glam!
Nab that perfect gift,
Lest Christmas get short shrift . . .

So, if someone’s made War On Christmas
Don’t blame Muslims or Buddhists or Jews
His mystery
His ministry
His miracle
All
Drowned in Christian revenues.

©Elizabeth Robin

No gardens bloomed in Bay Head this spring.
Surviving structures instead display an empty swathe of sand and debris.
Crepe myrtle and lavender and boxwoods and cherry trees,
Lynchpins that held the dunes in place, vanished.
Chunks of errant concrete, broken glass, twisted metal
Garnish blackened roots and brown brush.
A place rubbish came to die.
And yet, a fragment of yellow, a slender green stem, pushes from that rubble.
One daffodil, alive and well.
One bulb that somehow came to rest, took root, found nourishment.

South of Bay Head most of Mantoloking disappeared,
Steel beams holding a bridge buckled.
In Seaside, the iconic latticed iron rollercoaster
Twisted, snapped, swept away in minutes.
Gone. All gone.

Mayhem can be shockingly democratic.
We, fraught with fear
Of disease
Of death
Of deprivation
Live our lives fixated upon
“THIS JUST IN!”

Our reliance and attention
So misdirected.
The tensile strength underpinning a house
Or bridge
Or Twin Towers
Fails.

It lacks the mettle of one daffodil.

There it sits, the sole survivor.
One fragile flower, sprung from the rubble of Sandy.

As if to offer the ghost of a memory,
A whisper of what was.

What can be again.

©Elizabeth Robin 2013