The "Has Anyone Got a Light" Holiday Challenge Poems are here!

[vmh]

1. This Year I Pray for Courage

La Clairvoyance by Magritte


"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential." -- Maya Angelou

I curl within the egg, ivory walls
cracked and stuck with masking tape,
occassional scribblings of words
and sketches of the outside.
Men were designed to lie foetal and balled;
walking exposes the liver and lungs --

but when I pray I turn and press my face
into the curvature of the shell,
smell oils and turps mixed with chalky calcium
and push my palms against the dried out membrane.
I peer, sometimes, through a jagged slit
and wonder if there is a God
who paints my future.

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2. Frosty Twenty-Three

http://cottagehome.co.uk/wp-content/...craft.jpeg.jpg

The children offered him yellow snow,
bitter glitter, a stovepipe hat previously
pasted to a backslidden clergyman, some
puritan pilgrim caught wandering the house
well past his curfew. They pulled
buttons out of a clear plastic jar -
put an orange scarf about him, because

maybe he was cold.
On either side of him, they hung two more –
strung them through with gold thread.
To his right, they adorned the same orange scarf
same black buttons, out of the same clear jar –
to his left a blue scarf, purple, green, and red buttons.

“You could help us out of this tree; remove
the noose from our necks. You could at least save
yourself.” The snowmen to his left said.
“Didn’t you come to life once? Don’t you sing?”

“Leave him alone,” said the one to his right.
“He is not some children’s toy made to amuse the likes of you.”

Frosty said nothing.
He could have sung. He could have
sung so beautifully the children would have pulled
him down and danced and screamed with joy.

But he didn’t sing.
He was not a toy.
He hung there like a stocking
and waited for the snow to melt.

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3. 'Maman'


Arachnid weaver mother,
Carefully gating your eggs.


Steel needles balance
Space in the cold hall.
No room to spin
silk or mend
webs or wrap
visitors for lunch.


Questions hum like turbines.


Marianne has left.
She never liked being tucked in.

The art referenced is 'Maman' by Louise Bourgeois, in particular the 2001 installation in the Tate Modern

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4. Trench Art

"Gott Mitt Uns", the circling row
of letters guards the crown below:
your buckle ashtray gift. I wish
you Merry Christmas, share my cache
of smokes, and face the icy blow.

One voice sings Stille Nacht, it grows
from east to west, peace long ago
and now. Still. I wonder in the hush,
is Gott mitt uns?

Cigars die warm and dry, no foe
like No Man's Land. We crawl and throw
ourselves on wire while mortars flash
and iron crosses mark the slush.
We finally, in their failing glow,
see Gott mitt uns.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uwot6d4hgh...image.jpg?dl=0

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5. Nabuma Rubberband

When the earth gets too crazy
with homework and rain
I leave it behind
I leave it behind

I was born just like Jesus
with a mother and father
and lots to do
and lots to do

Someone had an idea
to whistle a world
just for me
just for me

I'll see you tomorrow
when each sign in the street
knows my name
knows my name

after the cover of an album by Little Dragon.

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6. Letter to John Johansen From His Sister


Bastard! A tube
of Tinker Toys
every year was all I
                    ever
                         wanted
                              and
                              you
got.
                                   Brutalism.
The Mummers owned
a tent and you built
them a play
ground for Picasso's children.
          How
               did it
                              strike you
                                   when they left
and little
girls pranced in tutus
on your stages,
how did it strike you
          when
     the last
               appeal
failed- I have photos
of the rubble – architectural
Chaos at its finest.
Mom and Dad
should have bought an Erector Set
for you. Maybe steel beams
     fashioned
                    into carefully placed
          oil wells
                         on the site
could have saved Mummer's Theater and your ego.

Link to photo.

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7. Genesis by Oleg Korolev

Genesis

Locked in my room, I play the violin
soft and slow, let the sound build
until I'm filled with fire.
But I don’t want to burn here
in the place where mothers
won’t climb stairs without rails
because they know that fingers
can't grab hold of air.
So while I play, I change
the order of my name.
I am Esined, the bold woman,
the newborn goddess, the Mom
who scoops up her sick child
and walks backwards
down the mountain
towards the healing.