"The Night Before Christmas"

or 'A Visit from St. Gothicness'

With somber and tormented apologies to Clement C. Moore

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through our house

was blasting the "St. Vitus Dance" by Bauhaus;

Torn fishnets were draped on my forearms with care,

And two cans of Aquanet applied to my hair;

My thoughts were of graveyards, and horror and dread,

Black visions of pain and despair in my head;

And Bianca, whose face was as pale as the moon,

Had thrown up her arm for this evening's swoon,

When out by the gravestones there came such a clatter,

I sprang from the coffin to find out the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a ghost,

Expecting to find a dark devilish host.

The moon on the breast of the uncaring snow

Threw ominous shadows on objects below,

When, before my tormented eyes did traverse,

But a gorgeous black Crane & Breed carved-panel hearse,

With a gaunt, shrouded driver, who filled me with fear,

And eight skeletal creatures that might have been deer.

More rapid than vultures his coursers they came,

And his deep Andrew Eldritch voice called them by name;

Now, Murphy! Now, Morgoth! Now, Torment and Woe!

On, Dreadful! On, Lovecraft! Mephisto and Poe!

To the top of the gravestones where fog wisps its breath!

With a weight on my soul I consign you to death!

As dead leaves that before hellish hurricanes fly,

When they flutter like giant bats' wings to the sky,

So up to the crypt-top the coursers they leapt,

While dearest Bianca, like death, still but slept.

And then, to my horror, I heard on the roof

The clicking and scratching of each bone-white hoof.

As I drew in my arm, and was whirling around,

Down the ebony chimney he came without sound.

He was clad all in black, and he looked oh-so-goth,

A billowy ensemble of crushed velvet cloth;

His boots were knee-high, quite buckled and zipped,

And the Spandex and fishnets 'round his legs were ripped.

His eyes glowed with bluish fire, deathly and cold,

A black eye-liner'd face neither youthful nor old.

A broad lipless mouth drawn with torment and hurt,

And his sorrowful face was as white as my shirt.

A smoldering cigarette tight in his grasp,

Its smoke curling eerily 'round his cloak clasp;

His gaunt frame was topped with long ebon hair,

And a sharp scent of brimstone and cloves choked the air.

His arms were outspread in the shape of a cross,

And I quailed when I saw him, feeling sorrow and loss;

He narrowed his eyes with a twist of his head,

And I felt the full weight of his angst and dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his task,

Left some Dead Can Dance CD's; before I could ask,

A single tear fell across his aquiline nose,

And then, like an angel, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his hearse, to his team he then hissed,

And away they all drifted like early dawn's mist.

But I heard him intone, ere he vanished from sight,

"Gothic Christmas to all, and to all a good fright!"