"Never Share"

I’ll write about you 

Until I’m thin air 

But this poem 

I’ll never share   

I’ll talk about 

Our first stare 

With which no other 

I’ll ever share   

My fingertips locked 

In her curly hair 

Hers to keep ‘cause 

I’ll never share   

Face so delicate 

Figure so fair 

Angels can’t hope 

To ever share   

Mind of a compass 

Morals of a square 

Only God 

Seems to share   

Pleasant and lovely 

And strong and rare 

Traits only she 

May ever share     

And world around her 

She seems to wear 

Only to hope

She’ll ever share   

But it’s our separate worlds

That seemingly chair 

For with any one else 

Distance be no bear

And all the miles 

From here to there 

Keep us from 

Completing our pair 

In a moment which 

In dreams we’d share   

But I’ll write of you 

Until I’m thin air 

But this poem 

I’ll never share

(December 2006)

"Defending the Position"

It’s the second winter day, 2003

And I sit in a dugout left empty

To watch the grass hold on to the field it’ll lose

As a dog tows his owner to a poop spot he chose

And the wintery winds, still warm, make the siding flap

Grows green the grass, and I watch it adapt

It’s held the fort strong, no patches dead

While all around its allies have fled:

The leaves blown off, the birds fly in scuttles,

The sun bows out early, the dirt cries in puddles.

Through their retreat, while scared of Frost’s ploy,

This beautiful day is a gift for the grass to enjoy.

(December 2003)

"Break in Case of Glass"

You talk of glass ceilings

That limit the size 

Of the salary you’ll earn 

Or portend your demise 

Like being a woman’s a crime 

A cast where there’s no mold 

To form fit the fight to

Break the glass ceilings.  

You talk of glass ceilings 

Like it’s a tease at the top 

A place you’ve been promised 

But will never live up. 

Still, if inside you erupt 

No wall, no roof, no controls 

Can hinder you and your goals 

As you break the glass ceilings.   

Deep down I know you’re feeling 

It’s exoteric, the power, wielding 

And it might be a haul 

No submitting, no yielding 

To this terrible glass ceiling 

And soon enough you’ll start seeing 

There’s no glass ceiling at all.

(December 2005)

A Christmas Missed

Soon television will be flooded with some of your favorite Christmas classics, such as Miracle on 34^th St., A Wonderful Life, The Santa Clause, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and A Christmas Story. The child in me always preferred the animated favorites: How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Muppet Christmas, and my favorite, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Each one of these movies are great in their own unique way, but the moral to all is the selflessness of the Christmas Spirit can trump any problem and bring warmth to any life.

 After witnessing some of the atrocities that occurred this Black Friday, one cannot help but wonder how amiss we are with the meaning of Christmas.

In a California Toys 'R' Us, two men fired their sidearms after their female companions entered a bloodied fight. The event culminated in the loss of both mens’ lives and also a sense of shopping safety. To quote bystander Joan Barrick, “All I was thinking was… I don’t want to die today.” Not wanting to compromise next year’s shopping, Toys 'R' Us dismissed the shooting as a “personal dispute” and therefore “inaccurate to associate [it] with Black Friday.”

Black Friday was worse for Jdimytai Damour, a part-time Wal-Mart employee who wiped the dust out of his eyes to report to his job early that morning. According to police reports and the New York Daily News, Damour was assigned crowd control at the store entrance – an arduous task overseeing an unruly collection of 2,000 people eagerly waiting for the 5:00 am opening. Shoppers to the rear of the crowd started chanting “Push the doors in!” and within moments, the doors barricaded off the hinges, followed by a mob that “bum rushed” a group of employees who tried to form a human chain to keep the shoppers at bay.

 Their yielding approach was in vain as several people were pummeled over, Damour included. Fellow Wal-Mart staff members scrambled and leaped “on top of vending machines” to avoid the mayhem of shoppers (who “yelled like savages”) until they could eventually reach Damour. The thirty-four-year-old died almost instantly of a heart attack.

 In turn, the raucous toppled four shoppers, including a pregnant woman who, after being stepped on, lost her 8-month-old fetus.

 All this for Guitar Hero World Tour for $59 or a 50” Samsung LCD TV for $798?

This might be a series of rhetorical questions, but what has happened to humanity during a season of giving? With behavior like this, is it difficult to imagine ourselves in A Wonderful Life where angels receive their wings? Is Black Friday nothing more than the search for this year’s fashionable “Red-Ryder BB Gun?” How would the Santa from Miracle on 34^th Street come back to judge us – as naughty or nice? Or better yet, what of the judgment the (oft-forgot) namesake of the holiday, Jesus Christ?

 We don’t need Jack Skellington or Tim Burton to identify with a Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s a Grinch that lies within, and for many of us, emerges on an appropriately named Black Friday.