Canto CVI

I’ve seen so many things in this queer world
that it’s a feat to render me agog
and yet I saw them lined up in the cold

outside the Church, the entire pavement hogged
by well groomed, bourgeois middle class families.
The line stretched out the full length of the block

and this was for the bloody CofE,
a queue that rivalled any Apple store
the night before they ship the IPad 3.

Perhaps consumerism was no more
now that the banks were belly up like whales,
eviscerated on some Norway shore?

As if to prove my point a father told
his daughter that this was the other side
of Christmas when she asked if Santa would

be waiting for them when they got inside.
A few feet further on the penny dropped
when I glanced to the side entrance and spied

a line of children clutching toy sheep props
and wearing tea towels on their precious heads
with face paint beards, an infant acting troop

to tell the tale of baby butcher Herod
and pregnant women turned away from inns
to give birth to the only son of God

among the cows, donkeys and some chickens,
though these seasonal Christians would be spared
hearing their children use the word “virgin”.

I can only hope this whole thing will be dead
by the time that my kids act in Christmas plays,
we’ll keep those tatty tea towels off their heads

and dress them up like each member of Slade.