The Irony Of Christmas Is

My Veins Are Filled, Once A Week With A Neapolitan Carpet Cleaner Distilled From The Adriatic And I Am As Bald As An Egg. However I Still Get Around And Am Mean To Cats.

Children Drown, Beautiful Women Are Mangled In Automobile Accidents, Cruise Ships Founder, And Men Die Lingering Deaths In Mines And Submarines, But You Will Find None Of This In My Accounts.

She Cried For Herself, She Cried Because She Was Afraid That She Herself Might Die In The Night, Because She Was Alone In The World, Because Her Desperate And Empty Life Was Not An Overture But An Ending, And Through It All She Could See Was The Rough, Brutal Shape Of A Coffin.

These Stories Seem At Times To Be Stories Of A Long-lost World When The City Of New York Was Still Filled With A River Light, When You Heard The Benny Goodman Quartets From A Radio In The Corner Stationery Store, And When Almost Everybody Wore A Hat.

Everything Outside Was Elegant And Savage And Fleshy. Everything Inside Was Slow And Cool And Vacant. It Seemed A Shame To Stay Inside.