My Soul Is A Drunken Santa Poem by Gary Diamond

Santa's a funny old thing.
Not as old as Jesus
Just as revered
Although Coca-Cola
Made him turn red.
(I've seen it turn the bottom of glasses
You use to drink it all the time
Completely brown.
What's it doing to the gut?)

At the pit of this anguish and abuse
After hundreds of stories and hours
All about selfishness and moaning about the world
Maybe it's time to lighten up.
The worse the world treats me
The happier I am
All because
I spend my free time being two-faced
And po-faced
To everything (but not everyone)
In it.

My soul is a drunken Santa.
I laugh, I cry with equal conviction
I'm a soft touch under all the malice
I feel I was brutilized but couldn't
Tell you why.

I wish I was richer
That my clothes weren't so threadbare
And full of memories, good and bad
Sober and drunk.
I wish I could hand out presents
On a need-to-know, ones-to-love basis.

I wish I could get out of bed before 3pm
And stop going there as late as 7am.
It makes me feel like Santa.
Maybe because he's drunk all the time
The North Pole seems perfect.

(I often said
Cure hangovers with
Orange Juice
Stiff, cold window breeze)