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Christmas Casualties by Stephen Watt

(Photo: Stephen performing at Doune The Rabbit Hole Festival)

Christmas Casualties

Stumbling into blazing, translucent, fairy-lit bedlam,
we become members of a taxi vigilante.
     Slack pompoms hang loosely
    over spirited, Rudolph-coloured noses.
Pockets are crammed with jewelled wrappers of Roses
pilfered from the office tin,
and pepperoni triangles
seep inside enveloped napkins
    for those 3.30AM gremlins.

Mauled umbrellas decompose in the city bins.
Wine steers heels past the rundown fleapits
    where the baby Jesus lies in the crib
    of the theatre’s entrance.
December’s winds shake small lanterns of parties
where foolhardy revellers without jackets
seek to strike all moving targets
with karaoke songs in broad, ribald accents

    until morning spins like helter skelters
    and a dampened Scooby Doo box-set

        is rendered unplayable ever again.

Stephen Watt (December, 2013)

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