December 5th, 2006

One of my lesser memories of Christmas:

Around Christmas 1996 I was at my usual favourite coffee shop and decided I wanted a "Christmassy" hot spiced apple drink instead of my typical coffee. I reached into the jar containing those little individualised packages of tea bags and things, and my hand got stuck. So I pulled and twisted and shook ... but still my hand wouldn't come out of that jar.

The owner of the coffee shop (his name was also Brian) worked with me to remove it, and we were about one step away from trying to break the glass as gently as possible, when one last Herculean effort with the softsoap coating my wrist and hand (and the mouth of the jar) finally did it. My hand came out with a fairly painful crush and a "poom" noise, while the jar nearly went flying out of my other hand, what with equal and opposite reactions and all.

The girl tending the counter retrieved the pouch of apple-spice powder I wanted from the jar, and then proceeded to clean the soft-soap off the mouth of the jar, giggling the whole time.

Me, I was terribly embarrassed ... though I could certainly appreciate the humour of the situation as Brian, the barrista, and customers shared a laugh at my expense.

* * *

Today I submitted a "fridge magnet" poem to a Christmas poetry competition.

They gave me a bunch of words, I could not pick them, then told me to arrange them, fridge-magnet-style. OK, so I took a look and saw words like:

And I thought to myself, "No! I can't do it! How can I work with this set of fridge magnets? I can't make a poem that sounds like a narrated Canadian Tire or Sears TV commercial! How would I live with myself?"

But then I hemmed and I hawed, and eventually came up with something distinctly counter-Christmas. Here it is:


WHY AM I JOLLY	FOR YOU   OLD HOLIDAY

WHEN MY LIGHT WENT DOWN
WITH THE WINTER WIND
EATING THE LOVE
THAT WOULD WARM THE NIGHT

A CRAZY FEELING WE WISHED FOR

THIS IS GIVING UP

And although it is a bit obvious, I don't mind the sentiment one bit. It isn't a work of art ... there is only so much I could do with my limited poetry skills and the words supplied to me, and the lack of punctuation is more than a little vexing :) But there it is and I submitted it, so the dart is on its way to the dart board.

But now I am left wondering if there isn't something unsettling—perhaps even frightening—about online poetry. Prometheus may have unbound himself and brought us a new gift.

(Next year I plan to submit an entire fridge.)

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