january

[Paul Welsh]

snow covers my walk to school

like a nun covers cleavage. winter

is nothing new, she’s been stuck

in my head for months,

(fuck mariah carey)

the world is a numb white,

and so are my hands -

just as we forget what green

looks like, the feeling in our

skin falls frozen off the bone.

december is a cold-hearted

bitch, dolled up in ornaments,

wrapping paper, adolescent

laughter, empty wallets.

jesus celebrates his

two-thousandth odd

birthday, and it’s clear

that under all of december’s

ugly-girl make up is just

pine needles. fucking everywhere.

There's savage play at work here, impression of written quickly, to draw out force of thought.  S1 delivers the 'full monty', does what it says on the tin, needs no re-write.  But you got critique for S2, harsh and misses the point I think. I got the picture of invading collaboration between the season and plain senses. so you moved from thought to flesh, from in to out, moved the story on, and I'm following.  For me, S3 had the least impact, it's more of a list of quickly forgotten irritable than an evolution of the force you developed in S1 & 4, I'd have flipped this around, since you started with nuns & celebrity, (Maria Carey), move Jesus to the end line, tighten up the December illustration - 'composting Xmas everywhere' - but I hear the start in the finish, I see the point and hear the voice of 'Death to the Holidays!'