After the first encounter

Too much
Of a good thing leaves
Choruses of adolescent
Revelers banging
Pots at midnight
Echoing into
Empty sidewalks
Seeking to
Suspend animation
Forever

Bipolar express

Genuflecting children beneath the frosted man:
carrot eyes and coal-draped lips barely parted
revealing tender black-eyed pea bicuspids,
ketchup rivulets
mark the wolf
ingested.

These young believers draped by the magic
of his light
and darkness
know at any moment
they may be whisked
to where both
joy
and pain
are welcomed.

They alone
bask in the truth of it:
that one
can not exist
without
the other.