Season’s gratings…

I reckon this is Krampus. It’s also the frontispiece for The Dark Side of Christmas.

One of the first poets I bumped into when I started using Bluesky was a chap called Mike O’Brien. He’s a Northerner like me, and runs a marvellous Substack called 60 Odd Poets, which has introduced me to many new and interesting poets. I was lucky enough to be number 75. Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because, Mike’s compiled a bunch of excellent poems by various authors celebrating the dark side of Christmas, turning the spotlight on the Yuletide villains - and he’s included one of my poems, which is called Balloons.

There’s a bit of a story behind this poem. Balloons was inspired by Christmas Day in Funchal last year, when I was sitting having a coffee in the Town Square, watching a young, long-faced chap tethered to a massive cluster of novelty balloons, being blanked by every tourist - even the kids. There were clearly at least a hundred other places he’d rather be. And that’s when my back story brain kicked in. Incidentally, Papai is the familiar name that a Portuguese child would use for Father, like Daddy, I guess. It’s a warm and kindly sounding name, but in the poem he is anything but a kindly father figure.

I hope you enjoy it!

And wherever you are, whatever deity you may or may not believe in, do your best to be nice to each other. At least until the Monopoly board comes out.