Holiday Streamers Poem by Lonnie Hicks

The holiday
is a slow strip;
each piece
glittering;
falling away
to reveal
naked relationships
beneath
our
tantalizing
onion pealing tears
dropping here upon
the table-
turkey and ham laden
swirling holiday music all around.

I love the music;
the solemnity;
the realizations
that we are all here again;
this year
bound by table legs
and time
constrained by the past we all share;

the future flies forth, too
our faces at the windows
the past's steamers are in tow
flapping loudly
as we take verbal possession
of our future lives
hoping the loudly flapping past be silenced.

Why must the past be so much more loud
than the future?
Why must what happened before
always be the loudest horn
we hear?

We light the candles-
incantations against
those past rubbery years
incense for those future years too;
some of us
trying not to notice
the empty chair;
friend, parent, boyfriend, girl friend or loved one
gone
not there;

And bravely we raise our glasses and smile
into 'Carry On for Another Year.'
And we do.