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A Thought for Today
Don't live by the Bible or the net or anyone else's idea of how you should live. Live by your own sense of morality, justice and truth. If you're wrong you will find out soon enough.
I'm spending the day with Aram Tashchyan at the help and rescue department of Creative Computers in Santa Monica. With any luck and a lot of talent Aram will be restoring my hard drive to its former ragged splendor. Something, I might add, the Apple Rescue, Tech Tool Pro, Peter Norton Utilities and my reluctance to zap the Pram has not for the past week been able to
accomplish.
I leave you with love and three more poems from "The Carols of Christmas."
3 MORE POEMS FROM THE CAROLS OF CHRISTMAS
Invitation
I've seen so many Merry Xmas signs
with Christ squeezed out by laziness
or the printer's economic need.
The outrage that it once produced
has almost found its way into the attic
with nineteen-sixty's broken toys.
( Had I not the faces of small children
to mirror Christ for me the whole year long
I might believe God dead, or sleeping anyway.
Though I doubt there lives a Lucifer
who could make September leaves to fall
or set the tails of dogs to wagging. )
God is living somewhere in the mountains,
a recluse from some people's hearts.
But He'd drop by smiling in the chilly night
and help us celebrate His first son's birthday
if we cared enough to leave the porch light on.
Caroling
Christmas
is the celebration
of a Mass for Christ,
the giving of our voices
to the songs of joy
that men have made
to christen the first Christian.
If we relegate that day to Claus -
however glad his entourage,
however bright his gifts may be -
then 'Jingle Bells' should be
our only Christmas carol
filling up the silent night.
Conscience
The wood holds dangers
darker than the dentist's chair
love is still the eye
of anything worthwhile
or worth having
and so we keep that one eye open.
And knowing that it goes by
multitudes of attitudes and names
it's wise to learn and not forget
the favorite name for love is conscience.
Conscience being the first thing
Christ conceived for us
must mean love is Christmas
by another name.
-from "The Carols of Christmas," 1971
THINGS TO COME
Next Tuesday would have been Frank Sinatra's 85th Birthday, so I'll have a new remembrance of him and a previously unpublished poem written for and dedicated to F. S. on the 12th.
Later in the month, a Flight Plan I'm writing that's all about cats. The first one, I might add.
The December 5th Flight Plan (concerning what I should write or IF I should write on weekends) has generated a heap of mail and who knows maybe I'll share with you some of the 1500 plus letters that have come in regarding that mini controversy.. I'm way behind in answering all of the mail, so there are plenty of your letters to answer and post.
Finally, being a political animal (what poet isn't?) you can expect a point of view or two from me on the current Florida situation. By the way it's nice to know Jay Leno's writers read this Flight Plan, three times in a row they've picked up phrases coined here. One was Electile Dysfunction featured in a re-run of a November show last night.. Way to go Jay..
Wish me luck today as Aram wrestles with my Hard Drive and I hope all your driving this weekend will be safe and sane.. Sleep warm.
RM 12/9/2000 Previously unpublished
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