Christmas Poem

When it is cold here it gets cold.
And everything is white—

With snow like powder fog,
Particles of flake,

Blasted to bits by the mountain’s
Rooster-tail

On its way from the sweaty Pacific.
The sagebrush is white;

So is the juniper, so
Are the gas stations,

The malls and billboards,
And of course—the schools;

And they say these hills are stocked
With ruthless cougars—

Sorry. At least you pay me
To go over the line.

Dear readers and subscribers:
Merry Christmas

And a happy New Year.
This is to announce

That next year there will be no
Poetry, or at least

Not very much. I will finish
Your book,

Revising from the start, then adding
Moar chapters.

Thank you so much for supporting
Me in this year.

To drop a cliche, it has meant
More than you can know.

Please stay safe from the latest
Lab leak

In this comic hellscape.
(I should have realized

In the nineties that the future would be
A “graphic novel.”)

Please submit your awful poetry
To the Passage Prize:

I will judge with droll severity—
“Like Rhadamanthus

On nitrous.” In the new year
I charge you

With focus and seriousness,
Levity and nihilism,

Optimism and utter despair,
Strategy and sincerity.

And think too of the animals:
Like the quail outside,

Shivering in the silver brush.