Twas the week before Christmas, I'm searching my soul
For rips and for tears and for fancies unwhole;
I'm searching to understand common accord,
In hopes that I find what I must have ignored;
---
My children were raised by my truth and my dreams,
By visions that Life could be more than glib schemes;
And mamma in her grace and I in my heart,
Believed we could live out long lives a la carte.
---
But no sir, we cannot, we all must belong,
We must eat the same sides, we must sing the same song.
We must buy the same house, we must earn the same cash,
We must thought the same thinks and live life in a flash.
---
Most choose substantial, to think that they know,
To cause and create and to increase cash flow
I chose essential, to ask and to doubt,
To struggle and search, to despair and act out.
---
In this free market system of commerce and quo,
It turns out that my dreams are plodding and slow.
More rapid than my truth discoursers they came,
And they whistled, and shouted, and fanned their own flame;
---
“Now, Bluster! now, Red Tape! now, Dogma uncouth!
No Wisdom! no Beauty! no Justice! no Truth!
To the top with our torch, to forego and forestall!
Convention! Division! It's best for us all!”
---
As sly thieves that before their injustices lie,
When they meet with an obstacle, quick to deny,
So up to the hill-top discoursers they flew,
With a way full of guile and trickery too.
---
And then, in a twinkling, I heard my soul sing,
Twas dancing and swaying, caught up in its thing.
So I drew in my angst, and I reined in my ire
And I danced with my soul to evoke and inspire.
---
And I let my heart sing to know passion and peace,
In hopes that my heartache and sadness would cease.
And I let my soul dance to know common accord,
In hopes that my faith in mankind is restored.
---
In youth, my eyes twinkled! I was simple and Merry!
I believed in a bunny, a fat man, a fairy!
Now four decades later, I see what wealth does,
I see what law is and I see how I was;
---
The stump of a pipe dream I held in my teeth,
Between smoke and mirrors, sharks circling beneath,
It took a few years, some decades to see,
The difference between, unthinking and free.
---
When our thoughts are all chubby and plump and belong,
When we dance the same dance and we sing the same song,
When the Earth cries in pain and reality screams,
We maintain our unthinking beliefs and our dreams,
---
We extoll all the Glories of Nation and God,
And we practice pretense and we live Life's façade
So I must put aside what everyone knows,
I must follow the truth wherever it goes.
---
I dance with my soul, to my heart give a whistle,
And away my dread flies like the down of a thistle,
I may not be right, but I know I'm not wrong
To beat my own drum and to sing my own song,
---
But despite my discord, I’ll find one spark of cheer
To believe that the fat man is with me right here,
And I'll hear him exclaim 'fore he fades out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."