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Here we go again —

the twilight of the equinox

has darkened into winter’s perpetual night.

 

I’ve grown a-weary of the midnight sun

here at the polar prison house.

 

No youthful, immortal Jove am I

but find myself frozen forever

at a corpulent seventy-five,

 

my neuropathy

perpetually

pin-pricking my feet

as I limp along

hauling bag after bag

from roof to roof.

 

(FYI, Mrs. Claus and I haven’t done it

since Nietzsche was alive,

and, no, Cialis doesn’t work:

our twin bathtubs have frozen over with ice).

 

The toyshop has morphed into a factory

running 3 shifts 24/7.

 

The elves stand dead-eyed

on stepstools along the assembly lines

cranking out what will break or soon be cast aside.

 

Restive, the reindeer wait back in the barn,

eager to do something besides sleep and feed,

their breaths streaming into the thin frigid Arctic air.

 

Come Comet, come Blitzen, ah, come, et al.

It’s time to defy Sir Isaac and take our yearly ride.

Down below stretch endless rows of tract housing,

each like the other, each with its requisite cookies and cocoa . . .

 

Here I go again, the Sisyphean elf, ho-ho-hoing.