Every Year

[Tiger the Lion]

Every Year

It's never really Christmas

till this 
little sprig of mistletoe
between us

demands a conversation.

[rowens]

Did you know that the MeToo movement, back when it was in its underground conspiracy theory days, was known as Operation Mistletoe. You don't believe me?, ask Alex Jones' wife. Or read The Golden Bough, if you're prepared to be bored for over 800 pages. --And this is Poetry For Fun, isn't it?

[billy]

i'm unlucky, i've not seen the stuff in a decade or more

[CRNDLSM]

Did you know that the MeToo movement, back when it was in its underground conspiracy theory days, was known as Operation Mistletoe. You don't believe me?, ask Alex Jones' wife. Or read The Golden Bough, if you're prepared to be bored for over 800 pages. --And this is Poetry For Fun, isn't it?

Operation mistletoe is too many things I can't find it's association with me too even searching Kelly Jones.  Google's usually okay with sharing conspiracy theories unbiased.

[rowens]

I've actually never seen Kelly Jones. Is she hot? Just to show my male point of view, I made that earlier comment without even knowing whether Alex Jones had a wife. For all I know, CRNDLSM, you might be Alex Jones. If you are, I'm in a WORLD of trouble.

[Tiger the Lion]

This wasn't really intended as a "Me too" poem, though I can see the resemblance. I've written a couple of thinly disguised pokes at the movement but no one noticed and they weren't overly memorable. It's probably a subject best left to the hyper-liberal tastes of the popular slam poets. Although, now that I'm thinking on it,  "Bone of Contention" might be a fun title.   Problem is, no one knows how to separate the narrator from the writer anymore. PCness has murdered irony.

[RiverNotch]

i don't see the #metoo connection, but then i've been reading/writing stuff where conversation is a thing that relates to love since before donald trump ran for office. you might get the same reaction with a lot of other folks -- idk if operation mistletoe is that well known, but the plant's much ooder than twitter.

---

plus i don't think pcness has killed off irony, it's just pc irony is a lot more twee.

[rowens]

There was no connection until I tried to make it. I just wonder how the office christmas parties are handling their mistletoe tradition.

---

I was born too late. I've always wondered what it was like in the days when men were men and women were smiling. . . . The original joke ended in 'silent'. . . . But if she doesn't talk, I don't know if she'd talk to me. And then I'll never know. By the time you ask her, it's too late to get her permission to ask her.

---

Of course we all know that jokes about women are funny, when they're funny at all, because they're not funny. . . . Not jokes, women. . . . . . No, not that women aren't funny, but that relations can be awfully difficult and confusing. Awful in the sense of awe. There needs to be something to break the ice. And by the time I got around the ice had all been melted. I was unnecessary and obsolete. Though in other cases, the ice was Antarctica.

---

I used to be a comedian, but I mumbled too much. Now that you're not allowed to laugh at people with speech impediments, I'm out of work.

[Quixilated]

So maybe I’m missing something, but I read this as a lighthearted, whimsical poem with a sort of “Will they/won’t they” romantic open ending.  I thought perhaps the N has either a crush or a past or something with the subject and every Christmas there’s the mistletoe, and underlying feelings, and perhaps a chance that this year something changes.  I read “conversation” more metaphorically than literally, more like the unspoken conversations that can happen as they wonder “does the kiss mean something more or is it just a lighthearted tradition” etc.  

Perhaps I am way off, perhaps I read it this way because I’m a fan of both mistletoe and holiday magic, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as such.

[rowens]

You know me, I always think the worst.

[ellajam]

I viewed it as spark/action/emotion/thought. I'm not really sure where it leads them, but they seem willing to go there again. Thanks for posting, enjoying it.

[Namyh]

Tiger the Lion - Now that's one way of settling on New Year's resolutions after a kiss. Hallelujah! Enjoyed. Namyh