Sonnet, January 2025 - Reversal

 He builds his case upon the cornerstone

That there is universal right and wrong.

Imagine, he suggests, a country prone

To reverse the virtues we have held so long:

Where cowardice is seen as bravery,

And betrayal is a badge of honor proud,

Where people laud a person's thievery,

Where pride is praised and honor disavowed.

Where empathy is hateful, hate is good,

Where greed is great and charity's a fraud,

Where lies are truth and truth is deemed falsehood,

Where cruelty's an ethic, kindness flawed. 

He thinks that we could not imagine how

Such a land could be. We're in one now.

Christmas 2025

We seem to hate our bodies, 

Loath embodiment. 

If we aren't longing to have our souls pull off into heaven, 

Then we are talking about uploading our essences 

To a computer singularity.

Short of that, we spend half our time 

Disembodied, our minds focused

On digital substitutes for reality.

Christmas is embodiment. 

The messiness and pain of birth. 

A human man, walking the Earth

In sandalled feet 

Mostly on dirt roads 

(only occasionally on water). 

He wasn't forever talking about disembodied souls. 

He connected them to bodies. 

Earthy illness healed - sometimes with mud. 

Leaving these poor husks of bodies behind, 

Christmas is the reverse. 

Earthy stories about seeds and sheep

And lost objects and money. 

Earthly relationships restored.

And finally, 

All of creation restored.

Here. 

Not in a virtual reality, 

Not in a digital version of our brainwaves,

Not in a fantasy realm of clouds and harps.

Here. 

On Earth as it is in Heaven. 

He came to embody

With hands and feet

And a voice and a face

The goodness of a human life. 

We are called

Not to disembodiment,

But to incarnation. 

 

A Christmas Parody (which is protected free speech)

Full disclosure: I own Grinch merch. 

Nonetheless... 

All the Peeps who like Christmas - and some who did not -

All liked "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" a lot. 

A book about Christmas not having a price,

It told us that Christmas was NOT merchandise. 

Although as a kids' book it couldn't be topped,

Some still tried to top it and couldn't be stopped.

First came a Grinch special TV presentation,

Then a live action Grinch, then CGI animation. 

The Grinch started snowballing, couldn't be caught!

In culture, it turned into a huge juggernaut!

The author's estate saw the Peeps adoration

And thought, "This is ripe for some monetization!"

Soon the Grinch was on T-shirts and sweathirts and hats!

His image was plastered on welcoming mats!

Grinchy mugs, Grinchy cups, Grinchy mittens and coats!

Grinchy cookies and dog treats and green Grinchy oats! 

And Christmas now turned into Grinchmas instead.

Perhaps it was right it was turned on its head - 

We seem to laud those who steal things away, 

And dis on the people who make good things stay.

We live in an age that admires the Grinch,

Forgetting his later redemption's a cinch. 

The tale that said Christmas might mean something more,

Has now become Grinchmas and sold in a store. 

But perhaps we might all learn a thing from the Whos

And put ourselves into their little Who shoes.

Despite all the things Grinches try to destroy,

The right way to respond is to hold on to joy.

Cheered

We stood in the staging ground 

For the city Christmas parade

Watching from the other side of the street

The floats prep for their turn to join 

The procession. 

And then it started. 

Floats were dispactched, 

Lurching out into the street 

In slow motion

To glide past waiting crowds.

Directly across from us was a float 

With the words O Holy Night 

Stretched across its side, 

And inside, a crowd of children prepared to sing

Or play the musical instruments 

Poised in front of them, 

Held at the ready. 

But it wasn't their turn to join. 

Apparently they held a later number 

On the parade list 

Because they had a long time to wait

For their turn to turn out into the street. 

So as they watched the other floats roll by, 

They cheered them on. 

For every float, there arose from the children

A round of applause 

And a spontaneous cheer of joy 

And encouragement and delight, 

Cheering the other floats on. 

Floats that sprayed soap-sud snow at them

Or had particularly spectacular lights 

Or giant sparklers sparking 

Received particularly loud cheers. 

But every one was cheered, 

And it seemed to me that we would all do well

To pay attention to everyone passing by,

And to find a way to cheer them on.

Everyone who passed was cheered. 

They never saw me standing across the street 

Hidden in the dim light and the crowding spectators. 

But I, too, was cheered. 

Sandspurs

Putting a plank of wood
Into the shed out back,
I noticed a whole garden 

Of sandspurs growing wild

And flourishing:

Those insidious, innocent (at first) little plants 

That sprout tiny green fluffballs

That suddenly turn into razor sharp

Orbs of pain this time of year.

I hate them.

Without thinking, I gave into my hatred

And, bare-handed, tried to rip them out

By the roots, 

Clutching the whole batch

In my left hand. 

In my annoyance with their existence,

I ripped them out,

And in return, 

They stabbed at my fingertips,

Jabbing my skin

With white hot pinches. 

Some of the points broke off, 

Splintering down under my skin.

I tossed them all into the yard waste bin, 

Satisfied that my anger had destroyed them, 

Had been appeased. 

But my self-righteous triumph

Felt thwarted 

By the throbbing in my fingertips. 

Two days later, 

And the splinters will not come out. 

My skin has covered them over

And eventually

A blister will form and harden around the splinter, 

And eventually I'll pull away the dead skin

And the splinter embedded in it

So I can heal. 

But perhaps if I hadn't wanted to pounce
On those thorny orbs so quickly,

Perhaps I might have saved myself 

A lot of pain

If I had just donned a pair of gloves. 

Possible Things Before Breakfast

The White Queen on the other side

Of Alice’s Looking Glass

Practiced believing impossible things - 

As many as six - 

Before breakfast. 

I see the merit in such and approach. 

It encourages imagination, 

An, ironically, possibility. 

But when I ponder it, 

There is also merit 

In believing as many as six

Possible things before breakfast.

When I think about the fact

That I wake up most mornings 

Immersed in a sea of certainties 

Flowing through my mind and all around me

So constantly 

That I hardly know they are there, 

It occurs to me that most other people wake up 

In seas of similar certitude

But of different certainties. 

The people I most disagree with, 

The people who think things I could never think,

Thoughts that are not only wrong

But translate into horrible actions

And terrible policies

Are just as certain as I am 

Of their rightness

Before they sit down to coffee and eggs and bacon. 

So perhaps 

It behoves me to think six possible things before breakfast. 

Is it possible that I’m wrong? 

Is it possible that my certainty is an idol 

I bow down to so I don’t have to think?

Is it possible I’m a hypocrite? 

Is it possible that when my certainties

Are brought out of my head 

Into the light 

They will make a scene and clash with each other? 

That I might have a fight on my hands 

Between rival ideas

That I thought got along fine

But actually want to tear each other’s throats out?

Do I hold others to a standard

I don’t expect of myself?

Is it possible that I’m 

Just going with my gut,

My knee jerk reaction, 

With what I want to be true,

When in reality, 

If pressed, 

I don’t actually know very much 

About the opinions I’m so sure of? 

Is it possible that the world 

Of ideas that I take for granted

Is just a construction,

Like the movie Matrix,

But created by my own mind:

Made up of biases 

And prejudices 

And online filter bubbles 

And money being made somewhere 

Out there in the digital either

From the fact that I keep on clicking 

On the things that already agree with me. 

Is it possible that I have reduced 

The world into simple binaries 

(Ones and zeroes in computer parlance)

Without nuance, 

Without color, 

All black and white, 

And myself always standing in the light 

Of righteousness? 

Is it possible I am missing the nuances, 

The inbetween-ness of things

The allows for complexity,

For paradox?

Is it possible that 

The worldview I find on my head each morning

Like an enormous hat 

I have somehow slept in

Is a protective helmet 

I have built around my mind 

To keep out the thoughts 

That might actually help me grow? 

But will I actually

Question myself? 

Will I attempt to step

Out of my comfortable, 

Limited perspective? 

Or is that impossible?

If so, perhaps I have thought six 

Impossible things before breakfast 

After all. 

Straw Men Are All Going to Die

 You prop up a straw man argument

when the real argument you are fighting against

is hard to defeat.

You replace their argument with your own version

a version that is a parody of the original argument

minus any wit

but bearing a strong scent of desperation, 

a ripe odor like rotting vegetation.

You smirked 

when they said

people will die

and answered, 

We are all going to die.

You knew that none of them were ignorant of death. 

But you pretended your opponents

were so stupid 

that they actually didn’t know 

humans are mortal. 

You propped up your first straw man, 

Who announced, 

People live forever! 

That’s a pretty easy argument

to knock down.

You doubled down when they objected, 

standing in the tombstones

issuing a sneered apology 

comparing their supposed ignorance of inevitable death

To belief in the Toothfairy. 

Your second straw man:

Your opposition believes the Toothfairy is real. 

A straw man blended with a non-sequiter. 

But you weren’t done 

Producing staw men. 

You then invited people 

To seek eternal life

By embracing your Lord and Savior,

Jesus Christ. 

I suspect you are embracing 

a straw man Jesus, 

a misrepresentation 

of the man recorded in the gospels.

I’ve seen a lot of versions of Jesus 

put forth by many different people, 

but nihilist Jesus is a new one. 

I don’t recall Jesus 

smirking at the lame and the leperous, 

the blind and the bleeding,

and saying, Tough luck.

Can’t help you.

We are all going to die.

To say everyone is going to die 

Is truth. 

But context matters. 

You were saying that because everyone is going to die,

we don’t need to care about them or heal them 

or care about their quality of life 

while they are here. 

We just need to let them die. 

Embracing eternal life,

we can ignore this one. 

With every person Jesus met,

he showed concern, 

not just for their souls, 

but for their very earthy bodies as well.

for their health,

for their well-being, 

physically and mentally. 

This set of blind eyes.

This rotting flesh. 

This bent back. 

This set of motionless legs. 

If you are concerned about the afterlife, 

you might want to review the parable

of the sheep and the goats.

You know the part. 

God separates the sheep from the goats

and tells the sheep they are inheriting 

The Kingdom of God 

Because they - among other things - 

Took care of Jesus 

When he was sick. 

And they don’t recall doing that, 

and Jesus tells them 

That whatever they do for the least of these - 

Like, for instance, caring for the sick - 

you do it for me. 

When you callously looked at that crowd 

And said We are all going to die

You said it to Jesus. 

Tough luck, Jesus, 

I’m not helping you when you are sick.

You are going to die. 

A straw man can be

Something you prop up

In place of your opponents’ real argument.

A straw man (or woman)

Can also be a front man 

Used to cover up

Dirty dealings.

A straw man (or woman) 

Can also be defined

As a person without substance 

Or integrity.

It seems that in making

Straw men so often,

You have become one yourself.

Or maybe you were made of straw

To begin with

And straw simply creates more straw. 

You sent your straw man argument 

and your straw man Jesus 

out to dance in front of a real argument. 

the real argument is this:

we are supposed to care for

and take care of each other. 

We aren’t supposed to treat each other

as being as disposable 

as straw.