We bring you something a bit special for our December poetry entry. Indeed, this month’s poem ‘Sleighed’ by Father Christmas has a Christmas theme and is by Michael Stenson the author of At The Time: Tales From A Village Offy. We formerly featured this book in our June issue which was online-only so it may have passed some of you by.
It’s a particularly irreverent and humorous look at an “encounter” between Father Christmas and a bingo-loving Grandma. Certainly quite typical of his work!
Take it away, Michael:
‘Sleighed’ By Father Christmas?
We’d all been to a funeral
‘Cos our Granny had been mangled
Coming home from Bingo, Christmas Eve.
But before she had quite died
Came a glint in one good eye
And she told us all a tale we could believe.
Granny said she’d spotted elves
Nicking toys off all the shelves,
In ‘Woolies’, all locked up and in the black.
Parked right there upon the roof
Was a bloke in a fat red suit
On a sleigh without the lights on, front or back.
Granny said that as she watched
Fat red suit and elves took off,
With a red-nosed Rudolph leading them away.
She thought she had been seen
By another reindeer looking mean
And fat red suit had let him go astray.
With nowhere else to go,
And footpaths covered deep in snow,
Our Granny had come crashing to the deck.
With sleigh now fast approaching
Our Granny was winded, bruised and crouching,
On both knees in snow up past her neck.
But that reindeer had just seen her,
And its look became much meaner,
With the elves all crying out for it to “WHOA!”
She said the bloke in the fat red suit
Didn’t give her plight a hoot,
No warning, not even slowing, just a “GO!”
As sleigh and Granny then collided
Fat red suit, it seemed, decided,
Our Granny might have just about survived.
So, with sleigh now swung around
They came back heading for the ground
To be sure our Granny couldn’t be alive.
Our Granny crawled back home
With fading breath and a dying moan,
Many hoof prints all down her front and back.
Clean down her left-hand side
Was a sleigh mark type of slide
And a piece of cloth torn from a Christmas sack.
Could be the sherry or the wines
Our Granny supped at eating times
That led her to believe what she had seen.
But Father Christmas for our Gran
Was a real and lovely man
Just like the fat red suit that fled the scene.
With those words, our Granny died,
And I doubt that she had lied,
But our Granny had a liking for the drink.
We believe our Granny wasn’t lying,
As she lay there slowly dying,
But did Father Christmas really sleigh her? – Makes you think!
Poem submitted by kind permission of Mike Stenson – Holt, Wrexham, North Wales.
In conclusion, if you enjoyed Michael’s poem “‘Sleighed’ By Father Christmas?”, you may enjoy our other poetry features. You can find them by clicking here.
Michael’s book At The Time: Tales From A Village Offy is available at Bellis Brothers’ Country Market in Holt, The Pharmacy in Farndon, The Tea Station in Deganwy, The Book Shop in Nantwich and finally at The Village Stores in Aldford and Tilston. Additionally, you can purchase it on Amazon and Kindle as a paperback and an ebook. You can order At The Time from Waterstones online, however, Michael is working on having it available off the shelf as well.
