Last Days of December: A Haiku Cluster

City bus crosses
a distant bridge in the rain --
end of the workday.

Highway is dotted
with cars like caterpillars
going north and south.

Full moon half revealed

looks as if it is wearing

a cloud as a hat.

Weakening sunlight
brightens bare trees on the hills --
two days past solstice.

Day before Christmas --

motorcycle Santa Claus

goes riding through town.

The only snowmen

are the inflatable kind

sitting on wet grass.

Delivery man

with a beard like Santa Claus

brings me my package.

Trees, as if abashed

by their nudity, now wear

necklaces of lights.

After Christmas trash.

Garbage cans line all the streets

with half-opened lids.

Clouds gray as the sky --
daylight wanes like the old year.
I am running late. - Jeff Barnes

Christmas, To Me

I 

I have no use for angels

singing carols in mid-flight.

Give me a colony of bats

flapping their wings in the night

and gingerbread men dancing

and swaying in the breeze

as they hang by their necks

from the branches of Christmas trees.

If you want to give me a gift,

don't send a partridge in a pear tree.

I would much rather have

a vulture in a bare tree.

I never understood the fascination

with that stupid little elf.

Give me a skull with a Santa hat

and I'll put it on my shelf.

I don't want a bearded man in red

to come down my chimney and say, "Ho ho ho!"

I want Vincent Price to come back from the dead

and read me stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

I love to hear the ghost of Jacob Marley

moaning and dragging his chains.

Christmas, to me, is Halloween

with tinsel and candy canes. - Jeff Barnes

have no use for angels

singing carols in mid-flight.

Give me a colony of bats

flapping their wings in the night

and gingerbread men dancing

and swaying in the breeze

as they hang by their necks

from the branches of Christmas trees.

If you want to give me a gift,

don't send a partridge in a pear tree.

I would much rather have

a vulture in a bare tree.

I never understood the fascination

with that stupid little elf.

Give me a skull with a Santa hat

and I'll put it on my shelf.

I don't want a bearded man in red

to come down my chimney and say, "Ho ho ho!"

I want Vincent Price to come back from the dead

and read me stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

I love to hear the ghost of Jacob Marley

moaning and dragging his chains.

Christmas, to me, is Halloween

with tinsel and candy canes. - Jeff Barnes

A West Virginia Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas
and Santa, in fur-trimmed camouflage,
got into his pickup truck
and backed out of his garage.

He drove to Twila's house
and entered without knocking.
Then he left a pouch of chewing tobacco
in her Christmas stocking.

His visit to Zeke's place
went without a glitch,
as he left a pair of truck nuts
for Zeke's trailer hitch.

Betty Lou's house was on a steep icy hill,
but Santa would not be daunted.
He drove up and left her a gift card
for the butt tattoo she'd always wanted.

He went to Billy Bob's backyard
where he left a shiny new grill,
and a big bag of charcoal
for barbecuing roadkill.

He crept into Bonnie Jean's trailer
as she was dozing in her sweats.
He left her a case of cheap beer
and a carton of cigarettes.

Bubba was in the county jail,
and on Christmas that was a drag.
But Santa slipped him a gift through the bars --
a brand new Confederate flag.

He waved and said, "Merry Christmas to all!"
But I won't repeat the words he began to shout
when he drove away and his pickup truck
hit a pothole, and the engine fell out. - Jeff Barnes

Denuded

Autumn
leaves.
Autumn leaves
left.
Autumn left.
Autumn left
leaves
on the ground.
Autumn leaves
left trees
naked
to the wind. - Jeff Barnes