Written by Christopher Hayes
Advent
The light nights are closing fast, as winter now advances,
Autumn runs straight and true on December’s snowy traces,
And icy, fern stippled windows stare out on bare stripped branches.
Profitable thoughts turn their attention eagerly towards Christmas’ gaudy festivities,
And fills each lascivious children’s list with ever more extravagant promises.
The Season’s theme is now a rising urge to spend,
To plunder bank account and credit card as if money has no end;
And somewhere in amongst the gaudy lights and shimmering decorations
Lies a modicum of truth hidden deep inside the celebrations.
Christmas Eve
Listen, while the frosty air congeals to turgid white,
And mystery intensifies the keenness of this magical night;
Where expectant faces peer wide eyed at the stars,
Hoping for the slightest glimpse of reindeer driven fairy travellers;
I sing, of conjoured myths that now bedeck each gilded home,
And lips that speak of holly, and ivy and mistletoe.
This only feast, this opportunity for excess,
Comes once a year with such dire disingenousness
That what it represents has long since been forgotten,
And replaced with something altogether more morally rotten.
Yearly, the Yuletide Feast raises a cornucopia of images,
An imago frozen in time, of Hunts and Horsedrawn Carriages.
Snowy Streets and frosted glass and rosy cherubim faces
Peer expectantly over notched windows singing Carols down the ages.
A feast of splendour, a pure cacophony of fir driven delights,
Of goose and gander, puddings and porter and dazzlingly flashing lights;
Of seasonal blessings and best wishes for the year after
Greet friend and foe alike in one mirthful extravaganza.
Seen through the rosy hue of nostalgia’s blunt devices,
You miss the whole subtlety of it all and blunder on regardless;
The Candle counts the fading hours as the year draws to a close,
and extravagant spending arises; on turkey, and pudding and Porter
Let’s sit around the fireside and savour this Dickensian wonder,
Of perfect snowy scenes filled with joy and seasonal splendour.
Fir bedecked shops hung with sheets of fatted geese
Give rise to visions of a veritable cornucopian feast.
A gift wrapped illusion from an age of bloody rage,
Imported images from other lands and distant pagan days.
An iconic miser defines the spirit of future promise,
Who turns from inner despite to outward beneficence,
In a single night vague spirits convince him of his folly,
To be much more merciful to the poor and needy.
In past images, resurrected for his instruction
He sees the future picture of his own inevitable destruction
The death of siblings, the hot hate of business failure and shame
Stack the odds against him to lengthen his burdensome chain.
And so in the great Victorian tradition this grateful benefactor,
Lives an altogether fuller life for his peaceful hereafter,
O! Marley, that you struggled upwards from the tomb, }
And with such fearful and terribly ghoulish aplomb }
Instructed your business partner in all those terrors yet to come! }
Listen now the merry music of another contrived song,
Meaders through snowy minds to carry us all along.
Fir and mistletoe, the holly and the ivy all testify to this,
That the yuletide feast is nothing more than one great antithesis.
Capital, for the spending spree that tempts some into debt,
Those gullible parents hypnotised by every extravagant gift.
The value of the season is now measured by every till that rings
Up piles of unnecessary, and largely irrelevant offerings.
The momentum of the season begins long before summers out,
With foreign holidays barely ended, Pandemonium raises its ugly snout.
Hits us from all sides with lurid enticements to spend,
Bombards with tempting offers and the “must have” latest trend;
An unrelenting raid that continues for months without end,
Gullible for the need to please their children and not to offend,
Parents ponder hard on gifts that will hardly get a mention;
Overwhelmed by gaudy parcels that purchase such shallow affection,
To while away the day and avoid any hint of close attention.
Such is this mishmash of symbol and ceremony,
Drawn from pagan rites with just a hint of Christianity,
Text © Christopher Hayes
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