Christmas cheer

Every month I attend a meeting of the so-called Hastings Poets and we read out poems we've written on a particular theme.  Experience has taught me that the participants enjoy light verse more than cutting-edge contemporary efforts, so I try to do something they enjoy.  For our next meeting the theme is a poem in the voice of a pet or other animal, and it occurred to me it would be nice to do something seasonal.  Research revealed that Santa Claus and his reindeer had their origin in the Norse legend of Odin's midwinter hunt through the sky on an eight-legged horse called Sleipnir.  This gave me the idea for the following, which I hope you all enjoy!

A REINDEER’S LAMENT

You may think I look cute as a reindeer

with my red nose and antlers and stuff

but I can’t take much more of this sleigh gear:

                I tell you, enough is enough.

 

I started in life as one Sleipnir

                the eight-legged horse of the god,

and was ridden by Odin the hunter

                leaving death in the paths that I trod;

 

then the Christians arrived and poor Odin

                was changed to a holy old saint

and the warrior garments he rode in

                were abandoned for something more quaint.

 

Then came Disney and Coca-damn-Cola

                determined to make us all jolly –

it’s enough to make me bipolar

                seeing tinsel all over the holly.

 

Poor old Odin’s in scarlet as Santa

                with a beard and white fur on his hood;

the power he showed in our canter

                has all disappeared now for good

 

and I got four legs and a headdress

                with antlers as wide as a tree;

they covered my nostrils with redness

                to make me revoltingly twee.

 

Now Odin’s tucked up with his sleighbells

                and I’m left alone up ahead;

if he’s ok wrapped up in sables

                I’d personally rather be dead.

 

Our fame is worldwide and our faces

                confront us on posters and cards,

on mugs and on plates, in strange places

                like underpants, roofs and back yards:

 

in my heart though I’ve still not adapted

                to life as a reindeer with presents

and this Santa scene that they’ve contrapted

                is something designed for the peasants:

 

in my soul I’m still noble, still coursing

                with Odin the god on my back

so let me get back to some horsing

                and accept that this reindeer thing’s cack.

Antony Mair