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Mulled Rhyme

Light the coals of long-lost Christmas

Warm the place for heaven's sake

Morning frost will starch the willows

Freeze the broken-reeded lake

Dust the fields like coffee cake

Stud the orange sun with cloves

Hang it in the mulling sky

Heat the pan of days, and slowly

Let the hours liquify

Lest their flavours pass you by

Call the fleet of clouds to harbour

From the tattered sails of night

Admiral Sun to look them over

Pale Midshipman Moon in sight

Lashed to wheel in milky light

Flag the mallards down the river

Now the wild-eyed storm has gone

And the herons wait like pages

With a winter fly-past on

Heralding a whooper swan

In the woods in wintry weather  

Sipping at the season's lees

Ivy-flower, mud and feather

Ancient drays in spindly trees

Seen on dwindling days like these

Scrawling cards, in some spare minute  

Foxed address-book on the chair

All the standard shipwrecks in it

Unmarked changes lurking there

Nothing though, to warn you where

Kitchen cooking up a blizzard

Spattered radio cranked to ten

Nat King Cole, Ronettes and Wizzard

Chestnuts loved from way back when

Carols for the working men

Get the chef a lunchtime noggin

Don't just hang about the place

Spice the washer-upper's cider

Brandy, cinnamon and mace

Puts a grin upon his face.

Careful with nostalgia's liquor

Melancholia of a sort

Drunk too deep it gets you quicker

Sediment of sentient thought

Sweeter than the cheapest port

Don't return to dull or dreary

Fearful dregs of dead Decembers

Faces raddled, spirits weary

These are only blackballed members

Best consign them to the embers

Shut the shop and lock the office

Time to elbow all of that

Grab the glitter and the baubles

Deck the maisonette and flat

Tinsel collar for the cat.

Mute the babbling television

Trying to mesmerise its quarry

Freeze the frame and shame a shaman

Stall its vast container lorry

Make the advertisers sorry.

Let the ghosts slip by you slowly

Like a well-loved play – the cast,

Kindly, well-remembered faces

Spirits of old Christmas past

Now the credits roll too fast

Here's the guvnor, his young brother,

Flashbacks from a long-closed pub

Beery counsel, one to other

And a tenner loaned – a sub

From a wolf to hard-up cub:

“Not too bad, boy – barring lateness

Carry on like this, I fear

You may yet go on to greatness

If we're all around next year,

Now – d'you want a Christmas beer?”

Spike the guns and quit the quarrel

Bring the soldiers home again

Where the windswept wives are waiting

By the wire to meet the plane

In the needles of the rain

Stifle all the whining sirens

Mute the city's drunken yells

Throng the street with laughing spirits

Light the square with carousels

Fill the air with wildheart bells

Couple kissing by the kettle

Briefly framed by window pane

For an elongated second

Glimpsed in streaks of sleety rain

From a late commuter train

Dark the churchyard yew, the berries

Dot the bottle-green with red

As the blackbirds and the thrushes

Mobbing down at dusk are fed

Bickering, put themselves to bed

Father Christmas and the missus.

Loading up the spectral sleigh

While the log-look gas fire hisses

Now the kids are tucked away

Final business of the day

Spin the yarn and sing the carol

Book the brass band in advance

Pull the spile from the barrel

Tell the joke, unleash the dance

Knees-up, Mother– now's your chance

Raise the golden Saturnalia

Fetch the tankards in on trays

Riddle out the ash of failure

From the cinders of the days

Stoke it up and watch it blaze

As you peer into the darkness

Listening for the midnight chime

Know there's no time like the present

Yet no present like the time

When the season's in its prime

Rooftops bathed in neon splinters

Where the shattered moonlight fell

Silence of a thousand winters

Broken by a silver bell

Merry Christmas, keep it well.

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