No room: We’re Full
There’s no room in this country,
we’re full up.
In fact we’re overcrowded,
there’s hardly room for us
(well, for our cars, at any rate)
so we really can’t take you or anyone else.
Sorry.
No really, believe me there’s no housing to spare,
none at all; especially with the rising demand
for second homes.
So you see, we really can’t help you.
You must go somewhere else.
And please move your old moke away from the Portico.
Thanks.
The stable? What stable?
What on earth do you mean?
We couldn’t put you in a stable.
This is a civilised country
and a stable, even if we had one, which we don’t,
wouldn’t comply with the building regulations
for human habitation.
So move away please.
…
No, my dear, it’s alright, They’ve gone now, thank God,
Just a couple of foreigners, bogus asylum seekers, probably,
in an old banger. Of course we couldn’t take them in,
people like that
Sharon’s Christmas Prayer
She was five, Sure of the facts,
and recited them with slow solemnity
convinced every word was revelation.
She said
They were so poor
they only had peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches to eat
and they went a long way from home
without getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey, the man walked, and the baby
was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
With an ox and an ass
but the Three Rich Men found them
because a star lighted the roof.
Shepherds came and you could
pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars.
The baby was God.
And she jumped in the air
whirled round, dived into the sofa
and buried her head under the cushion
which is the only proper response
to the Good News of the Incarnation.
A WORK IN PROGRESS
Christmas child You stand at our stable door,
Bearing the unwrapped gift of terrible, unrelenting love.
You will us to be born again, again and again.
Jim Hughes
Christmas Poems 3