Holiday Songs and Kisses: Christmas Songs and Other Poems

By Ruben Santos Claveria

Book Summary:

Holiday Songs and Kisses is a collection of poems that came from ideas I had while attending a spiritual support group in Chicago called The Living Circle. These poems express my longing, as a Gay man living with HIV, to connect with my partner, friends and family as well as geniuses of art and literature in order to find spiritual enlightenment. They are personal poems yet convey universal themes for meditation that are inclusive of anyone who attempts to sympathize with others and love another human being. These poems transcend the faults of disability to praise others with songs, words and kisses. This book comes as the reward from much therapy.

Websites:

www.twitter.com/RubenandMike

www.myspace.com/earthcircle

Im on Facebook too.

Author Commentary:

Comming out publicly about my HIV status was a choice I made when decided to self-publish my book, "Holiday Songs and Kisses." I have been living with HIV for two years now and most of my friends and family know. I have even told people on Myspace.com and people that I have met in Support Groups and Group Therapy that I am HIV Positive. I try to be a conscious citizen and activist using democratic means, like sending letters to the President of the U.S. and people in Congress at www.Congress.org.

Ive encouraged my partner, Mike, who is HIV negative, and people on the internet to write letters as well about many issues like Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Human Rights, Enviromental Issues, Health Care, Housing, Gun Violence, etc. Mike and I have received letters from Congress People in response to our concerns.

I love to read great books of classic literature and contemporary poets as well. I like to go the the website www.NobelPrize.org and read speeches written by Poets, Writers, Peacemakers, Scientists and Economists who have won the Nobel Prize. One of my favorites is Martin Luther King Jr.s speech and lecture on that website.

I have been through a few years of therapy to learn how to cope with Mental Health issues and keep myself in a constant process of recovery from symptoms that can make someone feel unwell. Holiday Songs and Kisses are prose poems that are partly inspired by desire to heal through therapy. I found a friend named Larry, another self-published Gay poet, in therapy who invited me to a spiritual support group called the Living Circle, a group that is open to everyone especially the GLBT community. I attended that group for over a year and wrote some notes down every time I spoke with the group about my concerns and lit a candle in vigil for someone. Holiday Songs and Kisses is a collection of some of those notes in prose poem form.

The "Kisses" section of my book, was inspired by a film I saw with my partner Mike called "Cinema Paradiso." These "kisses" are also a collection of my ideas on film, art, music, literature and they are dedicated to anyone who choses to care about me, because some of my friends and family members have given me the loving supportive enviroment I needed to be creative. I believe that a poem lives by companionship and becomes greater in the eyes of a sensitive reader. These kisses transcend the personal dedications I have made and become universal meditations on family, romance, friendship, art, literature, film and religion.

I dedicate these poems to anyone who desires to be loved and admired for their talents and achievements. I dedicate this book to anyone who desires to heal others and be healed.

My medication is keeping me alive and healthy so I am full of life-affirmative praise for the people who care to make a difference in other peoples lives. Thank you very much and Good luck to you. May the Holidays and the new year bring you your best wishes, for now and for all time.

Kind regards,
Ruben Santos Claveria

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 19, 2009
• ISBN: 9781450015608

Ruben Santos Claveria

Ruben Santos Claveria was born to Puerto Rican and Guatemalan parents in Chicago on October 9, 1971, exactly one hundred years after the Great Chicago Fire. He was educated in public schools, at Wright Community College where he was active on the school paper and Loyola University where he received a B. A. degree in Creative Writing. He lives in an ethnically diverse neighborhood near Hollywood Park in Chicago with his partner Mike Zebig and a large collection of books, music, and classic films on VHS.

Book preview

Copyright © 2009 by Ruben Santos Claveria.

ISBN:          Softcover       978-1-4500-1559-2

                    Ebook             978-1-4500-1560-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

Christmas Songs  

Candy Canes  

Prayers for Safety on Christmas  

Christmas Lights  

Snowed In  

Seasons of One  

Jose Feliciano got the Blues  

Seasons of Love  

Black Santa  

Great Expectations  

Redemption in May  

Hunger for Wisdom  

Happy Holidays  

Meditation on Happiness  

On Healing  

Compassion  

All Saints Day  

The Circle of Survival  

Empathy  

The Descent Inward, the Journey Outward  

The Butterflies of Trepidation  

Phantom Caravan  

Poems written for Children  

Winter Moon Magic  

Rainbow Heart  

Little Bird  

Marigold  

Snow Clouds  

Lightning  

A JOURNAL OF KISSES  

Cinema Paradiso  

A Photograph of a Kiss

A Venetian Kiss  

Babydoll  

A Transcendent Kiss  

A Rock and Roll Kiss  

The Birth of Consciousness  

A Whitmanesqe Kiss (to a mirror)  

An Oscar Wilde Kiss  

A From Here to Eternity Kiss  

A Terrible Kisser  

A Rodin Kiss  

Two Men Kiss While Listening to I Will Survive  

A Final Kiss (After Paul Verlaine)  

A Poor Old Woman Kisses a Poor Old Man  

A Kinky Kiss  

The Kiss of Life  

A Proclamation of Faith  

A Kiss Between Passing Friends  

A Kiss at a Gathering While Celebration Plays  

Kissing My Brother On the Cheek  

A Starlit Kiss  

Praise for A Journal of Kisses  

Communion  

A Kiss in the Middle of Eternal Nothing  

Two Girls Kiss While Listening to Strawberry Fields Forever  

A Kiss to Ruin a Date  

An Oedipal Kiss  

Pet Kiss  

A Kiss on a Flower Petal  

A Cinematic Kiss Never Filmed  

Last Kiss  

A Mother’s Day haiku about flower petals  

Holiday Lights  

I’m Sorry For Christmas

Falling Water

Autumn Night in Cool Dark Blues

Purple Flowers

For my loving friend and partner, Mike Zebig,

Who made this possible by bringing

So many Christmas songs into my life

—Christmas, 2008

Christmas Songs  

Every year a radio station in Chicago plays nothing

But Christmas songs, and the winter begins with

Rituals of hot cocoa, apples dipped in caramel,

Baby carrots.

The best Christmas’ you spend with those who love

You and any disagreements and disagreeableness

You dispel because you want to live in a world

Of forgivingness, healing and compliance.

Listening to those songs and a variety of artists

Perform them in different styles, you wonder if

Holiday music is the music that can truly change the world.

Holiday music can make you think kindly of someone

Or something you found hard.

Maybe you’ll use the internet to learn about charitable people on Nobleprize.org and

Be inspired to write to your congress person at Congress.org like I have.

Getting letters back in response is a boast to my self-confidence.

My father is in his seventies, and he still works at a hospital

Driving patients around in a bus. Sometimes I’d like to think of

My father whose name sounds very Christmassy—Santos Rafael—

Playing Christmas songs in his bus to fill the air with good cheer.

Or maybe he would like to do that but just does his job instead.

Music can be conflicting to your attention span and make you

Go into a digression or becomes a distraction, yet Christmas music

Can hypnotize you into reconciliation, redemption and sweetness.

My father has read the Chicago newspapers for decades, and he

Made me read quite a few articles about this and that,

Blizzards, The Berlin wall falling, HIV and AIDS issues,

Gun violence, car crashes, robberies and unemployment rates,

War and terrorism.

To think of bad news too much might make someone need

Intensive therapy, maybe even medication.

Yet listening to Christmas songs fills you with hope