Leash-Must

My mother told me

Gifts are about the pleasure provided to the giver

In seeing the receiver receive

Maybe so, maybe so

I set Christmas on the curb a few years ago

In America the addiction haunts the airwaves

The lobby where I work has twenty-four hour satellite radio

Tuned in Yule

I do not want a damn thing

Not from my mother, my brothers, let alone random friends

I want the opt out

I do not want to answer, “Did you go shopping yet? Tree?”

With an ask-back, “Are you Jewish?”

As if there are two options with this face

Nah, the depression, the suffering, a one-month a year

Five minute accolade to the poor so the nation can splurge

The tickers can rack in black

What to do with the excess?

As if the whole system is set to collapse

With the profits glaring in the Dow

Manufactured wars, religious tax subsidies, and investment bank accounts

Diverting resources so the average standard of living never rises

Above desperation, leave the crowd wanting and they’ll do what you want

Dancing under mistletoe for candy canes and magic vaginas

Dug me out of that snowbank

Don’t want back in

Don’t want the sing-along

Don’t want the garland bound

To my ankles or slipping round my wrists

Dragging me from a sleigh in gravel for a mortgage that cracks the whip

To have an annual practice where the populace marches in line

Get together sing along to keep the power sublime

Rule for a rule newspeak and done

Snow on the ground and fire in the lungs

Snuffed, oligarchy for a muted-majority

Keep in the pew-aisles, Merry leash-must