Something Else

  Something Else

Tired of Christmas,
I left my family
To nuts, liqueurs,
And “The Great Escape”,
Made my own escape,
And came in search
Of something else.

Now I sit, thoughtful, on cold stone,
Contentedly watching
The snow-covered,
Deserted town square,
Ancient-abbey ruins
Pressing icy flints
Into my back.

Bare hands wrap
The too-cold can
Of “Abbot Ale”;
My head is light from food and drink.
I glow with a dreamy, cold-set smile.

In a nearby ally,
A dog barks resentment
At merciless winter,
Lonely sound muffled
By a blanket of settled snow.

Through bitter, empty air
Cuts a biting, wintry breeze
That makes my jeans as nothing,
Claiming my legs in an arctic ache,
Burning the bones of my feet.

A car noses lazily
Into the Narnian square,
Engine purring softly
As though cotton-wool-wrapped,
Tires tiredly crunching
The fresh crust
Of all-levelling white.

Around the abbey wall,
Beneath the frozen shroud,
Rises the subtle sent
Of suffocated earth,
And a subtler sense
Of animals and plants
In winter hibernation.

The smell of Christmas dinner
Is melted away,
Along with after-mints,
Drambuie,
And gunpowder.