After Epiphany 3

There will not be a gay bonfire tonight
The outside animals were early fed
And early sheltered in their straw-strewn barn
To chew and low and snuffle through the hours

Then folks withdrew from duties and the dark
Into the house to hang their coats and find
A chair next to the stove; they sigh the time
And mourn the emptiness where was the tree

And linger drowsily over a Christmas book
There will be not be a gay bonfire tonight

After Epiphany 2

The stripping of the tree is almost Lenten
The ornaments gone, only “bare ruined choirs”
Remain, no comfort of carols or hymns
As it is dragged outside into the cold

It almost seems to shiver in the winter sun
Reduced to poverty and then to scraps
Which in the months to come enkindle then
An evening fire after the cows are milked

But not celebrated with festive lights
The stripping of the tree is almost Lenten

After Epiphany 1

Epiphany is the door into winter
Into those bleak, grey days, into the cold
When time itself is huddled in the dark
Asleep, suspended in the drifting mist

In clouds of icy mist among the trees
Above the somnolent, shivering earth
The brief, pale sun in silence disappears
The moon in silence rises high to watch  

Over a world asleep until far spring
Epiphany is the door into winter

The Feast of the Epiphany This Year

If the Three Kings were to visit today
They’d need the proper paperwork
Passports and visas, and what is the  purpose
Of your visit? A check through INTERPOL

A cavity search by rubbery hands
An escort armed with bribes and Kalashnikovs
Through tourists armed with me-phones, selfie sticks
And cardboard chalices, following a Starbuck’s

Searching the East for a wondrous ATM
If the Three Kings were to visit today

Epiphanies appear in various forms, and, on rare occasions, they even come at three thirty in the morning with your pants around your knees.

Your beauty gives sudden and striking realization
My love you have taken over me with your charms
Your sweet appearance becomes a wonderful action
Allow me to follow all sanctity in all the love norms

Let me praise you from head to toe and to celebrate
The taste and charm of your youth in burning sun
Your excellence of beauty makes you beautifully great
I am only your real lover except you there is none

Your sudden appearance has taken away my conscience
I do not know how to react and how to take experience
I can feel you all around me like really sweet fragrance
Please embrace me come in my arms to explore reference

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow

I waited for An Epiphany until it got dark,
fixing my gaze on the back-lights of cars
blinking against the depressed black sky
I waited for you, you went and got high.

I met a boy once with eyes wilder than mine
who wrote poetry about me for quite some time,
after I broke his heart when we were fifteen,
from that summer, I was nobody’s prom queen.

I died a hundred deaths when I was sixteen, sweet
dancing with darkness out on the street.
I had pretty clothes so pretty I clothes I wore,
Hidden beneath were secrets, nightmares, flaws.

When I was seventeen I started to smoke,
scared of broken dreams and squandering hope.
My mother said I have an old soul,
underwater I feel ninety years old.

You tell me twice I feel everything too much,
Eighteen years-young, kiss to kiss, touch to touch.
I drove you out to the Peaks one night so you’d understand,
picked you up later, took hold of your hand.

Now nineteen and still half grown,
tiptoeing around myself when I’m alone.
Hold me close, follow me through my head,
to my dark thoughts, be golden thread.