The Warning

by Brett Rutherford

He could be anyone, really,

a face in the crowd.
Jowled man, raggedy-beard,
ill-fitting overcoat, too long
in a basement from the look
of him, he surveys the crowd
at Sixth Street and Liberty.

Happy, the faces going

to the John Williams concert,

more so, the families off

to see the Nutcracker.

Shoppers stride over

to the Christmas village,

to skate beneath

a handsome, lit pine.

 

He waits for a bus where

brown faces outnumber him,

and at this he is furious.

He rambles loudly, not into phone

but into the general air,

talk radio host to everyone

and no one. "Just wait!" he booms,

"Till all the undesirables are gone.

All gone .... all gone ... it's coming.

Then there will be no one left

but us conservatives." I groan

and turn away,

 

but he is not to be avoided,

pushes his way into the 13 bus

I too am taking. Shoppers

get on, bags bulging with gifts

or groceries. "Know where you've been,"

he mutters, "and what you've been up to.

Bet you didn't pay for that."

 

He mumbles awhile about

the conservative curfew

that would clean things up:

no one downtown after 7 pm.

"Close all the theaters."

 

More black people get on.

More shopping bags.

"Target acquired!" he proclaims.

"Target acquired! Take this one out!"

No one pays heed.

No snipers obey his orders.

None of us have bullet holes.

 

I get off my bus,

head for the poetry reading.

The madman rolls on

with ever more alien

and suspect riders

accumulating, his blood

raised to boiling before

he reaches the place

he sleeps in, safe and white.

 

He could be anyone, really,

someone I went to college with,

maybe; for a moment I thought

that's what my brother

might look like now,

the brother I haven't seen

in half a century.

He could be anyone, really.

His list is long,

and he is getting ready.

 

 

Christmas, Don't Ask

     by Brett Rutherford

What was your Christmas like?
    they asked at school.
I changed the subject.

Stepfather sat at table end,
lording it over
his sage-infested stuffing,
whose scent concealed
the odor of rancid butter.

He often cooked
kielbasa, cheap meat
you could get by the foot,
from that unsigned place
expired food came from,
a gristle-tough lump
you would rather starve
than have its innards
within your own.

There was a room
in which a tinseled
Christmas tree blinked.
I never went into it:
the game-show and Western
television was not to be touched,
and the ashtray pyramid
of incipient lung disease
was never emptied.

Stepfather’s language
was all imperatives,
orders spat out
to the unwanted step-sons.
No praise was ever uttered,
no thanks. Years later I sit,
recalling,
he never addressed me once
by my own name.

How many ways, I wonder,
can an adult cancel
an unwanted child?

What did you do over Christmas?
    they asked at school?
Left home for good, I said.
     Best thing I ever did.

 

Knecht Ruprecht, or The Bad Boy's Christmas

Don't even think of calling your
mother or father.
They can't hear you.
No one can help you now.
I came through the chimney
 in the form of a crow.

You're my first this Christmas.
You're a very special boy, you know.
You've been bad,
bad every day,
dreamt every night
 of the next day's evil.
It takes a lot of knack
 to give others misery
for three hundred and sixty
consecutive days!
How many boys have you beaten?
How many small animals killed?
Half the pets in this town
 have scars from meeting you.
Am I Santa Claus? Cack, ack, ack!
Do I look like Santa, you little shit?
Look at my bare-bone skull,
   my eyes like black jelly,
   my tattered shroud.
My name is Ruprecht,
 Knecht Ruprecht.
I'm Santa's cousin! Cack, ack, ack!

Stop squirming and listen--
 (of course I'm hurting you!)
I have a lot of visits to make.
My coffin is moored to your chimney.
My vultures are freezing their beaks off.

But as I said, you're special.
You're my number one boy.
When you grow up,
you're going to be a noxious skinhead,
maybe a famous assassin.
Your teachers are already afraid of you.
In a year or two you'll discover girls,
a whole new dimension  of cruelty and pleasure.

Now let's get down to business.
Let me get my bag here.
Presents? Presents! Cack, ack, ack!
See these things? They're old,
old as the Inquisition,
make dental instruments look like toys.

No, nothing much, no permanent harm.
I'll take a few of your teeth,
then I'll put them back.
This is going to hurt.  There--
the clamp is in place.
Let's see--where to plug in
those electrodes?

Oh, now, don't whimper and pray to God!
As if you ever believed in God! Cack, ack, ack!
I know every tender place in a boy's body.
There, that's fine! My, look at the blood!

You'll be good from now on? That's a laugh.
Am I doing this to teach you a lesson?
I am the Punisher. I do this
because I enjoy it! I am just like you!

There is nothing you can do!
I can make a minute of pain seem like a year!
No one will ever believe you!

Worse yet, you cannot change.
Tomorrow you will be more hateful than ever.
The world will wish you had never been born.

Well now, our time is up. Sorry for the mess.
Tell your mother you had a nosebleed.

Your father is giving you a hunting knife
for which I'm sure you'll have a thousand uses.

Just let me lick those tears from your cheeks.
I love the taste of children's tears.

My, it's late! Time to fly! Cack, ack, ack!
 I'll be back next Christmas Eve!


_______
Knecht Ruprecht, from German folklore, is St. Nicholas' evil twin, who punishes bad children. 

True Friends

For Pierre and Jen

True friends
are those who downplay
your protestations
of seasonal depression,
drawing you out
on the shunned holiday
and its grim barrage
of hurled presents,

who ply you with roast beef
and good cheer;
good talk, too,
of all our friends
who are sliding to their ruin
save thee and me;

who, gleaning your thoughts
as moonlight glistens
on nearby snow mounds,
propose a midnight walk

through a densely-peopled place
where not one voice is caroling,
not one wine drunk reels,
and dead trees worthy
of Kaspar David Friedrich
thrust vine-clogged branch
into the lunar orb’s
eye-socket, a tramp
to the glazed and silent pond
of the North Burial Ground.

If there be Yule or Wassail,
raise cups
at Nicholas Brown’s
bilingual obelisk,
the Latin side well-lit
for night-bird reading,

or tip your cap
to the derelict women’s
Last Home on Earth
(the potter’s field
of the workhouse), or heave
the old year’s slave-chains
into the mailbox vault
of John Brown’s shattered
table-top tombstone.

Too chill for even
the flitter of bat,
the night is warm despite,
the august society
of graveyard walkers
our aristocracy.