Drawing by Susan C. Price
Screwge
By Eric Meub
Screwge
By Eric Meub
Poor Santa Claus and Frosty, dead and gone,
Lie crumpled on the early morning lawn,
More proof that neither oxygen nor pumps
Can salvage Christmas: Mother’s in the dumps.
A single switch commands the Christmas cheer
To light the tree and garland: every year
A wonderland, and every year the same.
Perhaps tonight the tree will burst in flame.
The bows and gaudy wrapping paper taunt
Me so: there’s nothing in that box I want,
The one that’s labeled “To my Dearest Wife.”
Next year I’m asking for a different life.
A friend advised me: Make yourself a List
Of Gratitudes. Oh boy that made me pissed.
I was unhappy; now I feel dismissed.
My Inner Child is going to slit her wrist.
This is the year to find out what it’s worth
To fake it through another Virgin Birth,
To smile and listen when my husband talks,
And be delighted with whatever’s in that box.
| Copyright © 2018 by Susan C. Price & Eric Meub Eric Meub, architect, lives and practices in Pasadena, the adopted brother of the artist, Susan C. Price. They respect, in their different ways, the line. |
This submission was the premier present I had received for Christmas. I dedicate it to everyone else who may harbor a reservation or two about one aspect or another of Christmas. I haven’t counted the number of inflated comic book or Biblical characters adorning front yards in my neighborhood, but I can tell you that two yards just a few houses along on my own block have about twenty such just between themselves. But theirs are mostly inflated, not lying crumpled the way numerous other yards’ decorations are. Almost makes me pine for the traditional crèches.
ReplyDeleteOn poop patrol this morning with Siegfried, I counted the number of inflated characters and scenes in the two yards mentioned yesterday. The nearest house, on the same side of the street we live on, has TWELVE such items, including a sort of crèchey looking one, although the presumed characters Mary, Jesus, & Joseph – huddled on what looks like a life boat – look more like survivors from Noah's ark than huddlers in the foreground of the coloring-book "stable" beyond them.
ReplyDeleteCounting this array almost distracted me from collecting two piles of poop along the sidewalk opposite.
Further along, at the second house mentioned, I counted TEN figures and scenes (including Santa on a sleigh being drawn by a HORSE!), and I realized that the adjacent house farther along probably deserved to be mentioned yesterday, for it had EIGHT figures, all lying crumpled on the ground.
TEN figures average apiece, based on these three neighborhood representatives.
Eric, that is just magic. How do you do it? Such common language, arranged so elegantly, and how deftly Susan's drawing personifies the poem itself! I hope you have plans to publish a compendium of your stuff, it deserves a wider audience. A shame, a crime I say, to keep such jewelry hidden away!
ReplyDeleteRoger, I long ago volunteered my services to Eric & Susan in the matter of publishing a book of “Poetry & Portraits.” I hope that such praise as yours will help warm them to the idea. I remain ready to help.
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