Once upon a midnight dreary, as I sat alone with Siri,
Christmas presents still to purchase, Cyber Monday deals to score,
There perched I with nerves now snapping,
packages in need of wrapping,
Gifts awaiting Christmas trappings, overlapping on the floor.
“Tis the season” grumbled I, “all glory that there isn’t more.”
Else I’d never find the floor.
Ah, so vaguely I’d remember, items ordered mid-November
As a Costco member, now were squatting glumly by the door.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—
vainly I had sought to borrow
From my charge-cards I might borrow happiness from days of yore,
For the spirit of the season urges buying more and more,
Overnighted to my door.
Then my mind seized on the burden, gaze ashamèdly averting
From the pile of acquisitions spilt across my kitchen floor.
So that now, bank-balance bleeding,
poverty I’ll soon be pleading,
To my creditors unheeding I shall pay forevermore.
Bankruptcy shall be proceeding, that is where my life is borne.
Christmas spendthrift to the core.
Presently a doorbell-ringer forced me not to longer linger,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
Packages they need a-wrapping,
creditors may come knee-capping,
Sorrows I was now recapping, yapping as I crossed the floor.
“Wouldst thou stay, converse a moment?” —here I opened wide the door;—
Packages and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams of Fridays Black no shopper dreamt before;
Etsy with their goods bespoken?
Hoping nothing had been broken,
And my only thought unspoken was that I would buy no more!
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the words, “Oh, sure”—
This I heard, and nothing more.
Dragging boxes undiscerning, sinews of my back now burning,
Soon, again, I heard a tintinnabulation as before.
“Mayhap”, said I, “Barnes and Noble?”,
breaking from my trance immobile,
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Lamentation to dispel with caissons bearing lit’rature?—
‘Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Motionless amidst the clutter, gazing outward toward the gutter,
Up now stepped a stately Postman, clothed in blue to reassure;
Not the least obeisance made he;
not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with bureaucratic mien of those who serve whom they abhor,
No kindness shone, nor outright malice, standing at my entry door.
“Sign”, spake he, and nothing more.
Then amidst my sad stockpiling, could not help myself reviling,
Poker face and postal uniform that he so blandly bore.
“You, man, are a public servant,
surely you must be observant,
Tell me what the sender’s name is ere I sign my name once more.
Alibaba? Ebay? Target? Amazonians galore?”
“Matters not, you will buy more.”
Much I marveled this ungainly fellow to discourse so plainly,
Answer so offensive, ‘neath my breath I sotto voce swore;
Yet amid this Christmas season,
no soul capable of reason
Could deny the reasonableness of his prophecy of more.
Flesh or spirit, care not I, deliver boxes by the score!
“Sign”, saith he, and nothing more.
For the Postman, standing lonely at the threshold, he spoke only
That one phrase, as if his world admitted but that single chore.
With his mail-sack then he puttered,
not a further word he muttered.
Thought I — might I utter phrasing, solely him to reassure?
“U.S.P.S. is my fav’rite, other shippers I deplore.”
Saith the Postman, “oh, for sure”.
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “The Post Office badly lacks esprit-de-corps.”
Doubtless the Postmaster General
glories in this true disaster
Of a workforce who no faster than a snail our burdens bore—
Till the packages we wait for — are but ghosts on Lethe’s shore.
Post December 24.
Ignore now this Postman’s riling, other places call beguiling,
Best Buy, Zappos, Wayfair, Walmart, to me now these all implore.
Time is wasting, I was thinking,
Christmas is upon us sinking.
Shopping days are shrinking, slinking past the deadlines I abhor.
Mystery of kraft-wrapped beauty, parcel that I so adore!
Sign for it, then order more.
Signed I now without obsessing, gave me now his Postal blessing,
Knowing not the sender, tossed the package by the kitchen door.
Turning now to be about
his still-unfinished postal routing,
Humming dirges that his doubting melancholy burden bore.
Leaving, he could not restrain from off’ring up one parting score:
“I’ll return, you shall buy more.”
Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if man or devil!—
How payest I for all these goods that you deliver to my door?
Christmas spending goes undaunted,
in my home by lenders haunted,
Driven to me by my lack of lucre for the deals I score.
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Postman, “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, friend or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get ye gone onto your route and bring me goods o nevermore”.
Leave no package as a token
of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my poverty unbroken!—mat of welcome step no more.
Take thy bag from off my stoop, and take thy form from out my door!”
Quoth the Postman “Nevermore.”
Source: (c) 2022, Christopher Hogan, with considerable theft from Edgar Allan Poe.
