A CHRISTMAS IN HELL

Lost luggage
Lost souls
Lost hope

All destinations
Forgotten

This makes
Dante’s Inferno
Sound only half
As bad

But this is only
The first time
That you’ve
Actually ever been
To hell

As the hours
Drag by
And drag on
And as the snow
Continues to fall
Outside

The window
Of the airport bar

And it’s bad enough
To be stranded
It’s bad enough
That the drinks are
All overpriced and
Watered down
And it’s bad enough
To be just another
Drunk business man

In a business suit
Holding a giant
Stuffed reindeer
For a child in your
Hands and then
Having to pass out
On it in the middle
Of a bar

Lost luggage
Lost souls
Lost hope

All destinations
Forgotten

Once

If I remember well
My life was a feast
Where all hearts opened
And wines flowed

And now?

It’s shit

Poet & writer R.M. Engelhardt has been published in such magazines as Thunder Sandwich, Red Fez, Rusty Truck and in many others over the years. He is the host of the Troy Poetry Mission in upstate NY where he continues to breathe and write.