Christmas-New Year Tuesday Poem: "Uncle Joe's New Year Tree" by Mike Bartholomew-Biggs

новогодняя ёлка дяди Джо

(Uncle Joe's New Year Tree)

Things are getting better, he said grimly

as he dragged the rust-brown sawn-off spruce

indoors. Its torn-off needles flecked the snow

along a track up from the rubbish heap.

Sentimental celebrations – outlawed

while the house was gutted and patched up –

were now in order. Order of the day,

in fact, to match the neighbours' noisy parties.

He liked it even better when he'd hauled it

upright, all the empty dry-spiked branches

draped with coloured fabric strips – like scraps

from rag-rugs on his mother's earthen floors.

Now there should be candles. People brought them.

Someone always brought him what he wanted.

Sometimes he didn't want it any longer.

As thanks he hung up dolls as ornaments.

He said things had gotten merrier. They hadn't.

Overweight of decoration snapped

the brittle, sapless limbs. He couldn't turn

dead needles green. But then again – Who could?

(c) Michael Bartholomew-Biggs

Note: After the 1917 revolution Christmas trees were banned

in Russia. Stalin re-introduced them as New Year trees

in December 1935 – strange prelude to the political purges

that intensified from 1936 as the "great terror" began.

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About Mike:

Michael Bartholomew-Biggs lives in London and is a retired mathematician who spent an all-too-brief time as a visiting fellow at the University of Canterbury in 2008.  His most recent poetry collection is (appropriately) entitled Tradesman's Exit (Shoestring Press, 2009)

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Although the Tuesday Poem Blog is officially in abeyance until January 18, I am posting a range of other poetry and short fiction on " … Anything, Really" over Christmas-New Year and thought Mike's "Uncle Joe's New Year Tree" a perfect Tuesday Poem to "fill in" during the holiday recess!