Shout for Joy

On this Christmas day,
we are given to wonder and amazement
as we contemplate
the days remaining.

It’s been decided
that the job creators need a tax break and
the job holders don’t.
The poor and abject

in our great cities
will be given little and then less, or else
lie by millions
in expensive prisons.

They have few options
besides crime. Inhabiting a machine designed
to eliminate
them, they slowly rot,

while we choose a few
to shine our light upon so that no one can
stop witnessing their
rich, beautiful lives.

God has given us
authority over nature, so we may
take whatever we
want and leave nothing.

Out of many, one
is now All for me—an undeserving few,
fattening on the
bodies of the rest.

It is being made
fair and lawful to steal from the poor and give
all they have to the
rich. And only when

every hard dollar,
every last drop of blood has been sucked from us
will they die at last,
their evil reign end.

What will then remain?
A wasted, abused world, bathed in excrement,
its jewels extracted,
its gold exhausted.

So what is there to
celebrate this Christmas day? The Christ child is
born again, away
in an oxe’s stall.

Herod heard the news
(Shout for joy!) He sent some soldiers (Shout for joy!)
but the soldiers couldn’t
find them (Shout for joy!)

‘cause they ran away
to Egypt (Shout for joy!) And there were angels
watching over them.
(Shout! Shout for the Lamb!

Shout for joy!) We’ll have
our Christmas today and we will be joyful,
even though it’s hard
to think we have long.

Poems for Advent 2017