Santa Claus
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By Howard Nemerov. Somewhere on his travels the strange child Picked up with this overstuffed confidence man, Affection's inverted thief, who climbs at night Down chimneys into dreams, with this world's goods, Bringing all the benevolence of money, He teaches the innocent to want, thus keeps Our fat world rolling. His prescribed costume, White flannel beard, red belly of cotton waste, Conceals the thinness of essential hunger, An appetite that feeds on satisfaction; Or, pregnant with possessions, he brings forth Vanity and the void. His name itself is corrupted, and even Saint Nicholas, in his turn, Gives off a faint and reminiscent stench, The merest soupcon1, of brimstone and the pit. Now, at the season when the Child is born To suffer for the world, suffer the world, His bloated Other, jovial satellite And Sycophant, makes his appearance also In a glitter of goodies, in a rock candy glare. Played at the better stores by bums, for money, This annual savior of the economy Speakes in the parables of the dollar sign: Suffer the little children to come to Him. At Easter, he's anonymous again, Just one of the crowd lunching on Calvary. 1. soupcon: small amount, quantity. |
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Poetry |