Ring Them Bells (on Christmas Eve)

I could sing songs of joy, but what is the point?
Enough people suffer to make proclamations seem crude.
I have no desire to sings of young love and romance.
The only happiness that interests me
Is that which is found in a warm meal
Or in a hard drink or bottle of beer.
The last remaining medicine for the wounded; the sick, the poor
The confused and betrayed

You can only write so many songs about chasing tail.
And the acquisition of all sorts of luxuries can bring no gratification, for I know they are undeserved.
On Thanksgiving we enjoyed two turkeys for our family of twenty. Two healthy birds!

There is no such thing as enjoying Christmas Eve with the knowledge that too many spend it alone.
They spend it hungry and starving beneath aroma of burning chestnuts.
They spend it desperate amid the sound of caroling in the streets to sounds of Mel Torme tunes.

—

I heard that Donald Trump may run for president.
What will Trump do for those who have nothing and who hurt?
For those “misused, accused, abused, strung-out ones and worse?”
Will he give a voice to the voiceless or to those with a megaphone the size of Texas?

There are millions who claim to follow Jesus
Whoever that is.
How many would be ready to give up their riches?
Trade their gold in for a little compassion?

How many of those who judge
Who point fingers
And bask in their disgusts
Have ever tasted desperate?
Or even attempted to know those labeled unjust?

I sit in a woven armchair now
And through the window I can hear the world beckon
I call for action in me now
Though I know no solution lies in heaven.
Will I merely entertain thoughts on how?
Perhaps the answer is to abandon the first of seven.
And yet I fear most of all aa I step out that door to sky without sound
That I will merely stand around
And dwell within the lot of acceptance.