The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Whirled Appeased

Candycane miasma stifles those
who struggle to breath beneath 
the lead crystal merry milieu
of yams served past their prime,
swollen refractions of spiced mallow
hover just outside ember reach
and the avid masked burnishings of
primates picking at their nits
then sniffing their musky fingertip
while sighing with self satisfaction,
their fur babies slumber all in a row
before the greedy row begins its 
morning roil amongst the slippered
weighing their expectations under
the tree corpse they erected to 
honor their devotion to paying
their taxes to Chinese elves
so for one blessed night we all may
hallucinate that the world is 
at peace while everyone reloads
to protect their mandate and trove
forgetting that theirs is but borrowed
and not everyone survives the gift
of grinch-letting the concerned who
lie awake planning the hard work
ahead while santa licks the
tinsel cream from his cookied maw.
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