I threw a crumb of cheese into the fire
and logs fell over. Flames licked blue. Pine snapped.
The tiny crumb, a molten mote no higher
than the hat on the flea on the elf’s coat, flared and mapped
itself into a shadow flash that flew
on flue wards, a one-molecule fondue
that no one noted except the elf, and me,
and the flea in her tiny too-tight Christmas hat.
What spirit of the hearth had set it free?
‘’Twas me,’ the smoke spoke, arching like a cat.

The flea, the elf, and I, stared at the cat.
Though it heard the flea’s faint ‘How’d you do that?’ shout,
at first the cat ignored us while it sat
there licking its fur, the burned bits winking out.
Then it sized us up and I thought I saw it smile.
‘I’m the Christmas cat, and I’ve come to help you while
away the hours that fuel this Christmas Eve.
You spent the morning driving yourselves to near
depression pricing presents, and then came home to grieve.
Not one of you remembers Christmas cheer.’

‘I do,’ the elf said. ‘When younger, I believed
that the dirty old man I helped was Santa Claus.
He told me, ‘Here’s your bonus, up this sleeve,’
and he took advantage. I still see his paws…’
‘You are making that up, you naughty lying twit!’
the cat hissed, clawing where the elf would sit.
But the elf, even quicker, hung himself from the mantel with care,
so the cat, saving face, confronted the Yule flea and me.
‘Today in the sun, when you three were enjoying the air,’
she asked, ‘did you think beyond lunch and the beach and the sea?’

The flea in her too-tight hat piped, ‘I remember
when the snow would grow and you would tell us stories.’
The Christmas cat thought hard on that; an ember
in her fur glowed gold. ‘Ghosts,’ the flea said. ‘Glories.’
The cat purred, pleased as gin becomes with lime.
‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Once upon a time…’
And the elf rejoined the little Yule flea and me
while we stared the fire down and listened to the cat
as she retold old tales: Nativity,
and mistletoe hunts, and more even better than that.

All the stores close their registers, bolt their glass doors.
All the shoppers go home, except one who explores
the car park for hoof prints, for he’s hoping to find
the traces of reindeer. They have left him behind.

He’d stopped for one eggnog, and he had the worst luck,
for who should be sitting in the Feather and Duck?
His mate from the Navy, drinking sloe gin and lime.
They ranted old chanteys and he lost track of time.
They rejigged the hornpipe then they spliced the main brace.
As dusk came his buddy fell flat on his face.

He’d paid both their tabs from his good buddy’s cash,
left a note in his vest, ‘Don’t go throw up the sash.’
Now amok in the car park, casting light with his nose,
he attracts folks’ attention. They notice his clothes,
his felt-padded belly, fin de siècle high boots.
‘Hey, dude, you and Batman, are you two in cahoots?’

Déjà vu thoughts, old history that’s happened before,
make him run to a diner, make him pound on its door.
‘Let me in. You will like me, for giving’s my bag.’

‘Come in, Hansel.’ His greeter’s a grotty old hag
who jerks him inside, saying, ‘You’re safe here from harm.
Oh, I so loved your sister, especially her arm.’

As gingerly, quietly, he breaks from her grip
to go dash up her chimney, surprised at his clip,
he notes he’s so agile it must be a gift.

‘Gift’ causes him panic as his redlined mind shifts
to the job he’s been trusted with: flying the skies
bringing presents to children. ‘My reindeer!’ he cries.
‘They’ve deserted me sadly. This evening will go
to the dogs like some royals I press-release know.
To the pits like some pols who this year gained their fat
by skinning poor peasants and avoiding the VAT.
I’m running on empty while the men who run guns
pay for adverts portraying them as better than nuns.
The guardians of Gaia have lost every round
this year to consumers, while sly pundits have found
silver linings invented to draw oohs and aahs
from the rabble (that’s me) who could care less because
we can’t find clear targets for to focus our rage
and beliefs are derided. Pedestrian age!’

As his cri de coeur echoes through uncaring streets
an angel approaches, bearing kindness and sweets.
She embraces the sad man: ‘You’re muddled and lost.
All the chances we’ve sent you are toys you’ve tossed
from your crib into the river. You’ve tried Not to soar.
You’re a raving lost tot. Never mind “never more.”
Here’s a new chance for Christmas (its meaning, you know);
here’s a sleigh, brand new reindeer, a leg up. Now go.
To the top of your courage, to the end of the mall,
to the places you dream of. I will let you fall,
but I won’t let it hurt you the grey, deadly way
that not caring shells you. Go out now, and play.’

As his angel departs him, he straightens his spine,
then whistles his eight deer, perhaps they are nine.
‘It’s Christmas, me hearties, and we’re ready for flight.
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”‘

From our kitchen window sill
even our shortest pets
can enjoy bird watching:
Great Tit, Blue Tit, Marsh Hen,

inspiring early this morning
before the sun appeared
some of our gerbil hims
to put on drag and play Bearded Titmouse

until one, ‘Beefy Karel’, went to change in
what looked like a little phone booth,
closed the door, hit the switch…
Microwave! A Crisp Mass Karel!

The rising Devil likes our minds encumbered
with the busyness of trying to rule this world
instead of dancing the steps for which we’re made.
He tells us that we are his footling foundlings;
he delights as we grow flustered by attention.

Unnatural heat unhinges our best steps.
His furnace, through the prisms of our eyes,
can cataract our visions: we see God,
in all we, self-appointed Shepherds, do.

When the Devil sinks to the darkness where he’s bound
he will not drag us whining: we’ll march proud,
complacently competing for the honour
of being first in line at any trough.

‘What is our purpose?’ rival Pharisees
ask us rhetorically, then claim to answer
while lost small children so very long at sea
in the space of time keep searching for The Dancer.

He stir-fried a pint of squirrel parts
with last week’s found duck eggs
and ate the mess with his hunting knife
and a wooden spoon from under the chassis.

He called for his dog and he whittled on downed trees
on the edge of his orchard while his dog bit fleas.

I was three wines into Wednesday when the world
went belly up and blew out all the lights.
In the darkness I called ‘Waiter’ and the Darkness
answered sotto voce,

Does this pen still write without me? One can hope.
There are buried stories worrying away:
On the forest edge a wolf pack chews a rank rope
that frays like rotting morays. Aspens sway.

It’s a Rocky Mountain Trinidad or conversely
a Caribbean peak beneath the sea
where fish and fauna interchange perversely
in the faux persona I imagine’s me.

Were the music other, would I order cava
and cavort with phantoms only I can see?
A Turkish ballad scars the redneck badlands
in the Smith and Wesson wasteland I call Mind:
When I mainline sugar my eyes conjure a Jesus
who drains the fountain that De Soto sought.

Norwegians drink at home from six till midnight
then go out dancing, singing, fighting Loki
for a last dance with Valkyries who will pay
for their twenty-bucks-a-bottle barroom beer.

On the 21st of December 2012, if it is still on, we’re going to an end-of-days party. Thinking of those misusing various modes of religion to profit from people’s fears, this End-of-Days archbishop’s soliloquy sprang as it were to mind then to computer.

I like the heft and sounds of ‘protoplasm’.
The fact few ken its meaning just endears
itself to us who earn food from religion.

When churches churl and minor prelates spasm
it is good we can fall back upon our rears
and public fears and take as alms a pigeon

that Cook roasts for us, giving its phantasm
to God above who loves a dove and cheers
us on, as smearing lips with grease and smidgen

of toasty bird, we chase crowds to the chasm
of the End of Days. We profit from their fears
and substitute for reasoning a pidgin

language blending piety, sarcasm
and awe for a made-up deity who repairs
to a made-up sanctuary playing chicken.