The day crept by; we all held
our breaths. Tip Toeing on
egg shells, doing our collective
best. Attempting only forced
politeness and meaningless
small chat.

While avoiding the family elephant in
the room, our father's painful history
of attacking his kid's perceived many
faults and failings, with his long history
of nasty aggressive verbal abuse.

The tree was lighted, the room gaily
decorated with all the colorful Christmas
props of our childhood. Mom cooked her
best guess of each of our, once adolescent
favorite foods. My two sisters, my older
and younger brother and me too.

While Dad bit his tongue and tried to stay
hushed, as Mom had pleaded for days that
he should do.

Halfway through dinner and a few Hot
Buttered Rums, the small talk turned serious,
and just like that, we were all truly back
home again.

Grown adults quickly reduced to sniveling
petty children sitting at their curl and
domineering Father's dinner table.

Old wounds opened and bleed upon Mom's
best-treasured tablecloth. Food grew cold
for lack of interest, eyes flared and oaths of
profanity mingled with cheery Holiday Music
on the stereo.  Belligerence ensued and the old
man raged as one by one he verbally listed his
disappointments, at each of our many collective
faults. A string of loud insults and accusation
were exchanged and flung liberally about in
all directions.

Judy's new husband took a swing at Jason for
reasons unknown, and the women protesting
their loutish behavior, separated them.

Earl and his small clan fled out the door and
drove straight back to Emeryville with not one
word of goodbye having been uttered, leaving
his kids Presents, behind unopened.

In tears, Sandy ran back up to her old room as she
had always done to escape, only to discover, that
it had been turned into a "Home Office/Sewing Den."
All her things gone to the Goodwill or garbage bin.

Dad went to the cupboard and got his bottle of
Scotch and the rest of us all quickly adjourned.

Mom started to cry and never quit.

The Dog Days of Christmas had recommenced,
and all the Kings horses and all the Kings men
could never put our broken Castle together again.

I donned my helmet, swung a leg over my Hog
and headed for the mountains, leaving Christmas
and all of them in my rear-view mirrors.  

Just maybe, next year we will all try this again.

The master of the dawn said: - It's strange to be here
on the black lips of the fields, and the evening caught up in between drops,
black trees making me shiver, - Kalos Gheron all dressed up in wet clothes,
blowing hair in the sky and a long beard rooting in the ground,
without cravings and sandals, penetrated by rain, crushed by worries
at the farm, takes the cows to pasture, - the mystery has not left them,
in peace, they ruminate wisely,
the master of the dawn said: - it, also, will snow tomorrow at the fair.

It's morning in the broken smile by tender snow,
heroic, simple, altruistic,
doubtless is sleeping on the branches with the hearing and sight of a partridge,
under the selfish blue sky, a trumpeter improvises,
- the aristocratic fields parade their white robes,
and the deer you saw last night is lying naked on the blind grass,
waiting for the groom in feather flakes to come,
two stars slip in her eyelashes gently whispering:
- down at the spring the lord of heaven cries out to us,
the time to receive the prayer (until dawn) arrives.

The master of the dawn said:- with him, I kindly realize how fear drifts far
and how his fantasy rotates, thaws the mist into white locks, (like a trumpeter playing
outside the scene with extinguished effect) at the call of the stars
the lord of heaven calls us.

Yours isn't gentle lunacy,
It's hammerhead insanity.
Great white crazy.
I'm not even safe walking on
the sand.
You ******* learned to graze on
the land.
Evolution is a *****.

I am working the
kinks out of
my you tube
channel.

But, if you
search Thomas
W. Case on
you tube,
you can watch me
recite some of
my poetry.

Meanwhile,
autumn's feral winds
blow the beggars
from my mind.
I'm just a windmill's
dream, haunted by
a thousand empty
bottles.

mood you’re in
I will always listen
without judgment
or thought
I am here
when you are lost

No matter what
road you’re on
you’ll always have
a friend to lean on
to walk beside you
to hold you up
to carry the load
and bear the cross

No matter what
you’ve done
you have someone
to count on
unabashedly, don’t be afraid
I’ll walk you through
every stage

No matter what
time it is
day or night
winter or summer
you can call
and I will always answer
when you’re sick
or at the end
no matter what
you’ve got a friend