A Christmas Visit From Knight Ruprecht
He clawed and brawled and scratched down the chimney.
Spat tobacco tar in a gob on the floor,
where he landed drenched in a donkey’s skin,
to scare away the aches.
A foetid fox grease seeped from his bones
while he half lived, half died
on the rug on the living room hearth.
And he threatened to salt the kids
who lay sluggard and truant,
thick with festive greed, tatting up their beds.
His ears were daubed with odious hare’s gall
the better to hear our whispered secrets.
Our words inked up into his brain
so he knew what we’d written
even if we burned it.
He said we should remember his name: Knight Ruprecht.
And if we didn’t remember, and remember it good
he would drip the juices from his grave.
A drop in each eye
to make us see the dead.
***
When Someone Writes You a Poem
If someone writes a poem about you:
It is the metric equivalent of one kiss.
It makes you weigh one ounce less, according to the bathroom scales.
If someone writes a poem about you:
Your heart, when scanned using a particular type of machine
will appear like a pie chart, and one section of the chart will be the colour of the poets socks.
If someone writes a poem about you:
You get to live one day longer,
This additional 24 hours is known as ‘museday’
If someone writes a poem about you:
Your ‘museday’ always falls within your favourite season,
but you never get to find out what day it was. That’s the rules.
If someone writes a poem about you:
The person standing on the exact opposite side of the world to you
at the moment in time when you read it, will sneeze.
If someone writes a poem about you:
It chemically alters your brain, and thus the world
So that nothing can ever be the same as it was B.P. (Before Poem)
Julie Mellor - poet 