Paul was happy earth birth day.

Paul was selling but not seeing the script, encouraging conversation & steering words away from religion & politics, & placing product suggestions between false listening.

Paul was “simply having a wonderful Christmas time.”

Paul was Christmas Eve

last year

& the year

before & the

year before

& the year

before

invented in 1822, or rather the idea of Santa Claus defined, by a poem. pajamas for such events, special & new, itchy on the skin the unwashed material new & special

Presents still

In iambic pentameter, a formula still
not fully focused, the potential in waking up
breaking out, special & new, the mirror
to walking, a beating heart, bells ringing

still

wrapped. Cookies & beer setout, untouched. Blankets made into small burritos to wrap around new uncomfortable pajamas. Sounds say everything. A type of campout with Lori in the attic. Cookie crumbs in the blankets. Itch, or new pajama feeling.

Noises in the night they would later attribute to reindeer.

Trying to cut through the paper thin. Formula equal to. Detrimental as it was not editied, though it would be recorded, mimicked on video

last year

& the year

before & the

year before

& the year

before

are charging the blankets, or cookie crumbs, an itch; what TV special is ending right now? They were fighting that night, the kids tucked in. What is a sugarplum? Was there ever snow on Christmas in this town? How could it stay white more than fifteen minutes with all the cars coughing past.

Paul was a ceramic coffee cup with four motivational sayings printed on it, one reading:

 

“Determination: Even the tallest mountain is conquered one step at a time.”

Paul was the marketing machine known as XMAS. The word itself the poorest abbreviation for the busiest of times. Commercial splendor, product placement with song & television tie ins & the idea of full display cases, though Wal-Mart is not a main street nostalgia, just a big box holding & exploding all of the above. & this year’s hot toy. & long lines.

 

This is where the true meaning of Christmas would be inserted.

A list with a bicycle on it. Digging though stockings last. Endless loops of Christmas carols, old versions revised with today’s pop stars. & then your favorite song. Driving through town looking at decorated houses, Paul yelling “Christmas lights on my side” to drown out his sister Loraine’s “Christmas lights on my side.”  

 

So this is Christmas.

Paul was a jolly happy soul, with a corncob pipe and a button nose
and two eyes made out of coal. As the song says. Though the cartoon image stuck in Paul’s mind as a defining icon of Christmas.

 

Paul remembered watching a tapped-off-of TV cassette, complete with holiday commercials for Coca Cola & Hess trucks. & while the song certainly was jolly with its “thumpety thump thump,” Frosty was a sad tale to the boy.

 

On his journey to the North Pole, Frosty is being pursued by the menacing Professor Hinkle. After a narrow escape via bellywopping down icy slopes, Frosty and his human companion Karen come upon a greenhouse filled with poinsettias. As Karen must be kept warm, Frosty and the girl step inside the humid house. Frosty promptly melts as Professor Hinkle locks the magical snowman inside the temperate hut.

 

All that is left of Frosty is a puddle.

 

Curled up in a fortress of blankets Paul wept at the death of Frosty. Christmas will pass, & your snowy dreams will all melt.

 

The story continues with Frosty coming alive again, but the blow was struck to Paul. It was the loss that remained.

Paul was

 

“I don’t think it is very interesting, & the work just winds by, passes the time, it becomes a counting game of minutes to hours to weeks to dollar$. Each day pulled out, unwrapped, eaten, & forgotten.”

 

Paul was a child’s chocolate advent calendar.