’twas the Cold Before Christmas

’twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the house
We all were coughing and wheezing
Especially my spouse.

My son was wheezing
And coughing up goo.
We’re hot and then freezing
Just feeling like poo.

Medicines arranged
On the counter darn well,
With hopes these germs
Would be blasted to hell.

My wife with Kleenex
I had some too.
So often we sneezed,
Then the well worn “bless you”.

Bumped into the table,
Drugs all go a clatter.
Onto the ground,
This stuff that just matters.

As I pick up the junk,
I hear a strange sound.
Santa, it seems,
Well, a sniffling sound.

Lite coughing I hear,
I feel bad that I gripe,
When his nose I see,
Upon his sleeve he gently does wipe.

I hand some Kleenex,
The stuff with lite lotion.
He pats my left shoulder,
Quiet emotion.

Up the chimney he goes,
With a cough and a sneeze.
I look out the window,
He then says out to me.

“Hair we fish sticks, do awe,
Odd may comfort find ewe.
Germs go awayed,
My node cleared up too.”

Questing

Resisting the gate-keepers of mediocrity.
Crafting a life, unique.
Freed from fetters of mundanity.
This life I seek, eventually.

Messages

Lights move,
Left, right,
Flowing across screen, deceptively
Page-like.
Words of greetings, news
Of friends, whether across the wall
Or apart by hemisphere.
Urgency.
A dance
Based on money’s
Song.

Fears

Paralyze my forward motion.
Continuously reviewed; my past.
Parse, tear apart, drift away my focus
From now, here.

Unwilling to be wrong?
High standards gone awry?
Or just internal schadenfreude?
A delight in my own misery.

Always my past,
Drug forth, tortured.
Each fault extracted
My anguish revisited;
Reborn.

Fear’s Relentless Burden

Children across my life.
Odd that none suffer.
Free of disease, lacking
Any ailments that
Chill the souls
Of parents.

I shudder, fear shakes
Hard, knowing statistics
Don’t lie.
Our moment comes.
May my grace be strong
Enough.

Amen.