Happy Hour

Got a light there? Thanks a lot.
You know I quit this time last year,
and every year for five years straight;
guess it's something of a habit now.

Christmas season, here again.
Down the street at St. Jerome's
they've got their stable on the lawn,
their little shrine to the nuclear family.

Like a homeless family living in a crate –
except they're painted antique gold,
the mother's smile serenely smug,
the kid a pricey plastic baby doll.

What kills me, though: the father figure
with his wire shepherd's crook:
keen to please, the unassuming chump
who thinks he shares his wife with his jealous God.

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Christmas rush hour. A string of lights
on the highway blurring red and white,
a parade, a goddamn yuletide show
watching angry shoppers come and go.

Have a seat there. That traffic won't
be letting up for an hour more.
Me, I'm in no hurry anyway;
there's nothing on the tube tonight,

nothing in my fridge, no furniture
in my apartment, while a few miles from here
a stranger's sleeping with my wife,
a stranger's raising my little girl.

So cheers and here's to happy hour
and happy hours yet to come
when everything's the way it was before
when life is better than it ever was.