including the wish list and another dark holiday evening
a pigeon forged with iron will out of steel scraps and wish fragments groans into unsteady flight. a baboon cries out its lonely heart under a disapproving jungle moon. a drunken larch dilligently picks its way through a mass of mud and worms. even untidy elves get a break from the work of enchanting to rumble downstairs and play a game of billiards, leisurely filling the room with cigar smoke and beer stains until it is time once more to trudge upstairs in ill-fitting wooden shoes and fill their hollowed tree home with frog princes and hag princesses. In a certain light hares lose their characteristic glow and fail to appeal to even one of the many senses. A wildebeest can adapt to any environment, except one without the essentials for life, which are listed here in painstaking detail:
the fucking IRA
jellied yams
frilled meat
benches (2)
gumption
goulash
funky music
apple (rotten)
a thorough list
belly dancers (green)
thank you.
Hounded by the dogs of Christmas past, warble through the land seeking one to hear your dreadful carol, help the fortunate, curse the poor, trundle through snow like a bundled up ornament, without feeling, without articulation, hurdle down slopes with a sled built of tree bark, crumble into nothing and tumble into rabbit holes when spring grabs you up in its clutches and rings you out. Bumble and bustle through untended sidelanes of despair because that's the holiday spirit, godamit! Jingle, jangle, shake and mangle, grind and step, blast, intensify, bump and stump, slump to the pathetic sounds of another cliched advertisement song. You've done it all, you've packed it up, set it off, built a candle with two ends to burn, ridden a sleigh into the ghoultrodden nighttimes, bewared the brownies, felt the ground, on your knees, for signs of a beast's passing. The tommygun is there and ready, cradle it in your arms, caress its easy curves, admire its efficiency, mow down the gawking bystanders, fill the walls with holiday cheer, one lone gunmen angry with the soft pelting of mail, hated by none but hating of all, thankful to the dark lord of fire beneath the floorboards, listening to albums backwards on a warped and ancient turntable, watch the land light up one more time.
11/28/96, 12/1/96, 2/17/98
Jim Genzano
