Christmas just in Time

(dedicated to Dirk Binder and my German friend Kristina Bott)

It’s been a stark Christmas time
for me
and for many others
in this “land of the free”

There are families whose sons
are in seemingly pointless danger overseas,
kids whose Santa Clauses won’t come
(to kiss mommy by the christmas tree) …
as they’re under lock and key
for say drinking some mushroom tea

so Christmas got closer,
week after week
but I just wasn’t feeling it,
wasn’t feeling it you see

and so Christmas Night found me
high
lying on my back in the jacuzzi,
when I finally saw the long-sought epiphany
(as bright and clear, ya know,
as a flashing Zordacian U.F.O.)

See, we are not alone
we are not alone
we are not alone
we are not alone

This is surely true in the famous sense:
i.e. somewhere there are bound to be
little green men who shoot lasers instead of lead,
well-read wolfish beings
who are from trays of silver fed,
and under-the-sea housewives with outlandish tentacles
extending from their heads
(the much-wished-for extra set of hands)

But it is also true
in more down-to-earth and truly cosmic ways:
see we tend to think ourselves too unique
in what we value, seek, and dream;
sensing the bizzare fusions and mutations of our day
we hide away on islands in the stream
and perhaps drink too much rum

But our daily actions do not die come night
but affect folk downtown
and on far-off foreign sands:
a kind or harsh word to a Mexican "vagrant"
can echo clear to the sleepy town
from which he was sent
(and it's the next broke-down gringo family they'll thank
or upon which they'll vent)

No, we are not alone:
not the scared soldier in his tank,
not the lonely manager in his bank,
neither the dying old sailor at sea,
nor the crying young idealist...
spending Christmas up in a tree

As individualists, we merely exist,
however rugged, wealthy, or intelligent we may be:
only as citizens and friends
do we ever really live.
And though there's nothing wrong with:
X-boxes, paintings, snow-boards,
jaguar cars and fender guitars

a chance for Peace and Love
is by far the best thing to give