Before the guests arrived,
there's still a hundred and one chores
Hang tinsel in the doorway,
deck the halls and sweep the floors
The beast had been slaughtered,
its carcass hung in a blare
And preparations made
for the baking of the bread
The child on a chair
stood transfixed by the power
As the mother pounds the dough
with her forearms in the flour
Carried on a tray
as if the head of John the Baptist
And put into the oven
for its final flaming chapters
Now all the doors
throughout the house
lay open bar one
Behind it, hunched in misery, the eldest son
For echoes of a jilted love
in every thought lay haunting
It stays safely hidden
from his family's playful taunting
Tears will never bring her back,
trying to hide their mirth
Stop feeling sorry for yourself,
it's the evening of the birth
He took out a pile of papers
where he'd written his love poems
Shook out the tiny insects
who'd made the heap their home
Crept into the kitchen
with those words of desire
He opened up the oven door
and threw them on the fire
Each page curled, they clenched like fists,
the smoke it swirled in upward twists.
The anger of a dragon's eye glowed,
read the love.
The mixture swelled and
puffed and stretched,
almost outgrew the oven
And the eldest boy snuck through the yard
While the moon it watched above him
Well it took three men to lift it out,
they cried, we've just been blessed
We'll live off bread for three whole weeks
and feed the cats the rest
Well others just dismissed it
as a mishap with the East
Their brains in their bellies,
eager to begin the feast
Well the councillors all took their places
With bloodshot cheeks on
pockmarked faces
The pastor's wife offered her a plate
And Mother lowered the knife
Now sooner had the cutting edge
pierced the tender crust
The guests were all blown backwards
with a vi olent noxious gust
The most moving words of passion
never heard in their lives
Were spraying all directions
as daggers, darts and knives
Madden rushed to the front door,
a wave of shrieks and howls
Some fallen down,
riddled with the shrapnel of vowels
Pinned onto the wall,
one was shown his goodbye
Slumped with a hole sharp centred,
sticking from his eye
A thousand tiny bits of crust
Spread where the bodies lay
A soldier kicked the front door in
And it was Christmas Day