With the holidays approaching, I thought it would be fun to write a short group of poems based on one of my favorite stories of the season, A Christmas Carol!
- Christmas Past
In the blizzard of memories I wander.
Left and right,
Hand in hand with an eerie presence.
She whispers in my ear,
A few silent words
As I’m dragged from one lifetime to another.
My childhood,
My tragedies,
My greatest blessings.
All of that wrapped in one little life.
I saw the love I’d held and lost,
The very things I’d yearned for.
The ones that remained at my side and those who didn’t.
It pained me, truly.
It shook me to my core.
I felt my heart begin to freeze as I wept at my former doorstep.
“It’s time to go back now,” she said.
But I didn’t want to leave anymore.
I’d rather hang on and suffer
Then have to let go once again.
But before I can utter so much as a word,
I’m back in my room.
Awaiting the next ghost.
All of my strength and my pain,
My memories which I resented and desired.
Now back in the present.
- Christmas Present
A glowing presence,
A warm demeanor.
I feel a hand guide me out of my house and into the streets,
Allowing me to observe the solemn world around me.
For it was on this same night I ventured away,
Away to a time of struggle and understanding.
I see the lives of all I know,
Of all I love.
I try to speak.
But just as my past,
They remain unhearing.
Yet this is far less fearsome.
Less lonely—less cold.
I was so focused on the storms of the past,
That I never realized how warm the present was.
I turn to speak.
But that guiding hand is gone.
Everything is darker,
Except something in the distance…
- Christmas Future
By the end of the night,
I cower in fear.
For in the distance,
Is a silver-slate headstone.
My name engraved,
Cackling with a sinister delight.
A cloaked figure guides me,
Holding my hand as I sob and shiver like a child.
He has no face,
Not a single reassuring smile.
Just a pair of bony hands,
Cold and dead with sharp angles.
I fall into the coffin,
Wooden and crowded with dirt.
I want to scream and beg,
But my face and body is frozen.
Seconds later,
I awaken.
Alive and well,
As if nothing ever happened.
It’s Christmas Day alas,
A day of joy and giving.
