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Thread: Christmas Poems (CTG)

  1. #1
    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Default Christmas Poems (CTG)

    Photo: Liverpool Children's Christmas Party ca. 1927

    A fringed lampshade hangs drunkenly above the gathering
    like a flapper after too many gins. A ratty bearded
    Father Christmas at the center of the display, primeval
    like old Saint Nick, stepped straight from legend,
    a child's toy drum on his knee, clutching a furry drumstick.

    Under plunging Christmas garlands, the cross-legged
    little kids with doughy Irish faces, white socks, sandals,
    girls with bobbed hair, party hats, elastic under chin.
    My uncle in school cap, shoulder to shoulder with two boys
    with false hooters, another kid's caught picking nose.
    A balloon floats up, casts a shadow on the floor.

    The flushed-faced men at the sides like old retainers.
    Are they pedophiles, adulterers, upstanding family
    men, petty clerks, managers, justices of the peace?
    The hefty women in the back corners, strings of pearls,
    one eye on the children gathered in a pool below them.

    Christopher T. George
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

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    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Another Liverpool Christmas poem:

    Threepence for Luck, Baby Blue

    Mum puts silver threepenny bits in the Christmas pud
    for luck, just for you. The steaming brown pud
    bathed in brandy that Dad lights with a Swan Vesta match
    flaring in the dark, the pudding glows mysterious blue,
    singed black with a twig of holly on top,
    ready to dig into after the turkey and sage stuffing,
    the gravied mashed spuds, proletarian sprouts.

    Ladled out and drenched in yellow Bird's custard,
    time for us to hunt for the threepenny bits.
    Mum says, "Don't break your teeth, Baby Blue!"
    The hidden treasures emerge from the goo,
    "I've found one! Have you?"
    That's luck for me and luck for you.
    Pink on my sideplate, stuck with pud, the big "three"
    surmounted by a crown on the reverse,
    in a Christmas wreath, I think,
    on the obverse, George V or VI, maybe Victoria, too.
    If I'm extra lucky, visit to the dentist deferred.



    Christopher T. George
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

  3. #3
    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Christmas Eve on Hilbre Island

    Evening descends,
    the tide’s coming in,
    sealing off Hilbre
    from the mainland.

    We’ve a picnic hamper,
    a thermos of coffee,
    Christmas pud thick
    with raisins and rum sauce.

    Snow settles in the grass,
    melts on the tide; above,
    on the observation tower,
    a kestrel eats a vole.

    “Good King Wenceslas” drifts
    on the wind, interspersed
    with the bark of seals.

    Christopher T. George
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

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    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Midwinter in the Palm House

    Outside it's snowing, a lone robin grubs
    for millet seeds along the cement path.
    Inside it's steamy, banana palm fronds
    stretch toward roof, platforms for monkeys.

    Water blinks like an eye in a purple bromeliad,
    bee buzzes trapped in nectar of a pitcher plant,
    We explore musty forest of mosses and ferns;
    hidden nitches of white catleya orchids throated

    with speckled saffron. The snow melts on glass
    above us. But in here, it's eternal summer.
    My hand presses yours, your thumb
    tracing a hieroglyph in my palm.

    Christopher T. George

    Toxteth.net has a great old photograph of Sefton Park when it was covered with snow, looking over the boating lake with the Palm House in the distance. As noted, the photograph comes from the Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool Libraries. Visit Liverpool Libraries online catalogues at http://archive.liverpool.gov.uk
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

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    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Christmas at Inwood

    The fire in the dining room is long dead
    and frost feathers the leadlight windows;
    in my bedroom, the diamond panes oranged
    by the buzzing Corporation sodium lamps
    on Aigburth Hall Avenue; in the silent
    lounge, the dwarf tree from Bousfield's
    decorated with American bubble lites
    sent over by my parents in Maryland,
    merrily bubbling like tiny lava lamps
    above mounded gifts to be opened.

    Christopher T. George

    The History of Bubble Lights
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
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  6. #6
    Senior Member lindylou's Avatar
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    Lovely poems Chris, and an interesting web-site. I didn't know there was so much history behind the little Christmas tree bulb

  7. #7
    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Thanks, Lindy.

    Chris
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

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    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Finger for a Bow

    I lend my finger for my mother to tie a red ribbon
    on a Christmas gift; I've gone round to help
    her wrap, recall 50 years ago I lent a finger
    for my grandmother to tie up a gift: the pinch
    on my fingertip as the ribbon's pulled tight.

    Christopher T. George
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

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    Senior Member ChrisGeorge's Avatar
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    Seen from the train:

    ELF STORAGE
    Christopher T. George
    Editor, Ripperologist
    Editor, Loch Raven Review
    http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/
    Chris on Flickr and on MySpace

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