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

Nocturne

More heard than seen
leaves

like low flying bats
flutter

across the rain soaked
street

this October
night. - Jeff Barnes

The Oldest Old Fart

Don't expect to find me lying in the back of a hearse.
My goal is to be the oldest living being in the universe.

I want to see my great great great great great grandchildren's graduating class
and live long enough to need a robot servant to wipe my ass.

I'm not eager to leave this life anytime soon,
at least not until I see colonies on all of Pluto's moons.

I want to grow 98,632 miles of white hair
and see every ocean on the planet evaporate into the air.

I want to celebrate the 500 trillionth anniversary of my birth
and see the extinction of every cockroach from the Earth.

I want to see what used to be Mount Everest lying flat
and be able to call Methuselah an impertinent young brat.

When, at last, the universe is entirely destroyed,
I want be be around to live peacefully in the void. - Jeff Barnes

Magritte Suite

This is a bit of verse inspired by the work of one of my favorite artists, the Belgian surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967).

If you are not familiar with his work, the Google image search is your friend.


Magritte Suite

Who am I? Where am I? What is this place?
I can see nothing but this apple
that hovers in front of my face.

This painting said it wasn't a pipe.
I know that was no joke,
because when I tried to light it,
it simply went up in smoke.

A castle atop a boulder
hovers in the air,
but nobody seems to know
how it stays up there.

Things look grim at the moment,
but please don't give in to despair.
A bird-shaped patch of bright blue sky
is calling to us from the air.

The sky is filled with men in bowler hats.
Nobody seems to know why.
Are they coming down like rain,
or rising into the sky?
Maybe they just hover
with no place to go.
Who are these well-dressed gents?
Nobody seems to know.


A man whose body is a cage
keeps a white dove
where his heart should be.
Another dove sits on a ledge outside,
and hopes he will soon
set his captive dove free.

She stands naked by the sea,
smiles and gently closes her eyes.
She is her own horizon,
and she slowly becomes the sky. - Jeff Barnes