Stuffed Animals’ Christmas, Koimbarren Kitchen

Love Amongst Red and Green Cellophane

by Davis Lisk

The crinkle of Christmas packaging From thy white fingers mingling With lissome hands the wrapping Paper – I fall into thy smile And eyes of Bluest Nile. My breath is left from mile unto mile. The snow on the window is melting, And like it mine is all the while Fading into melody, And I’d like to sing you a song, But I don’t want to speak. Silence is a better harmony, And to its tune I’ll sing along. Thou art my Mary, mild and meek.

The Christmas Goblins: A Warning and Villanelle

by Albwin Robinello

Tall, crimson, green-cat-eyed, As winter settles they arrive, Long-haired, long-eared, deceit inside!

On Christmas Eve they saddle and ride From out their snowbound grotto-hive, Tall, crimson, green-cat-eyed They gallop through the countryside And city streets (how few survive!), Tall, crimson, green-cat-eyed!

Do not go out, for if espied There’s no escape you could contrive. Long-haired, long-eared, deceit inside,

Invisible at first they stride To those who unshriven strive: Tall, crimson, green-cat-eyed, Long-haired, long-eared, deceit inside!

And full of far-off faerie pride (Though marred and mingled still alive), Long-haired, long-eared, deceit inside.

Subito: Bethlehem

by Davis Lisk

Silence: The night weighs thick Upon the roof of thatch Where lambs are gathered in a mass Of wool Around the feeding trough; they form A faerie ring; the spell Subito rounds A child. Holy Elements

by Davis Lisk

As Christmas bells are ringing And birds aloft and singing Inside my heart I’m bringing My ponderings together Flung over my shoulder in a bag of red leather As on I go amid the snow, Consider all the time doth show Among the birdsong soft and low. The season shall remember Christ by the sparrows and the winds of December.

Aquatic Peace

Leah Buffalino

Cliche Christmas Heartache Poem

by Taylor Rose Elliott 11/01/2020

The Christmas lights downtown Twinkle like dead stars through the fog In the clear, dry November night Smoke in the air hangs delicately I don’t worry anymore about being delicate Without you now

Now I can see a hazy image of myself From where you stood, in your grey shoes I see the girl you dreamed of, fighting against The scarred coldness and shaky hands. Then you realized you’d dreamed it all wrong But still I was mending and worthy of love With and without you now

The people in the parking lots and the markets Blasting Christmas too loud inside and out For show or distraction, I don’t know In the fluorescent isles buying wine and eggnog. I drink in the cold air, I work on eating all my words It’s all pooling in my lungs like melted snow I drink it all in, deep, without you now Building homes up with gingerbread On your mother’s kitchen table Hippie vans and spaceships were all we needed. A locket with an imaginary picture Stockings and hearts with our names I miss our coffee shop, the one with espresso and CBD shots But I will never miss your Christmas Texas heat I get to wear his big sweaters and I shake only from the cold Without you now

I know I have vices-- based on need, Or self hurt, I don’t know But I see the girl you thought you thought You could save me from becoming The angry postmodernist and the loud darkness When we were drunk on the idea Of losing saved by loving

I’m still writing out our months, line by line Trying to hold Time on a fishing line Taking shots at you, salt without the lime For a while I told myself you never cared For a while I couldn’t drown the thought That you still might, you still might But in the falsity of this Holiday night I have realized The necessity of putting up a fight Of losing yourself just to put it all right Of choking on what you thought you knew Of the necessity of loneliness