A Christmas Tarp

No work today on the house--just this Christmas poem I've put to paper:

A Christmas Tarp

Christmas is upon us
Hark!
Let’s gather ‘round
The Christmas Tarp!

Laze about it
Rake some leaves
Shake it
In the Christmas Breeze

Tarps are for Christmas
Christmas Tarps
Not gilded, gleaming
Angel’s Harps

Bring us together
These Christmas squares
Drapers of
Decrepit stairs

Band-Aids over
Holey roofs
Meeting place
Of hapless goofs

You have one ‘round
I know you do
I have two:
One white, one blue

So celebrate
That kingly Lord
By fastening
Our bungee cords

Optional “Interim Phrases.” Can be sung as a hymn, solemnly, with feeling:

It’s often told
As the babe lay
Asleep
Amidst his Christmas hay

That Animals looked on
Some few:
A moose, a cat,
A kangaroo

How easy
To clean up the mess
If one lone tarp
Had been a guest

Alas, no tarp!
The wise men beamed
No vinyl,
Polypropylene

End of “interim phrases.”

Bag up Christmas
Wrap it tight
Then tarp it
On this Christmas night!

It took two-and-a-half days of never-ceasing effort to produce this writing--alone in a soft white room, with no food and only a half-glass of water. From the house next door I heard Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler,” played over and over from a broken stereo.