Quite simply, anything from MAD Magazine needs no introduction, save for the legal stuff: Copyright 1999, by E.C. Publications, this selection is from the December 1995, Super-Special #109 issue:

The Night Before Christmas, 1999 or St. Nicholas Meets the Population Explosion
(with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

'Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the gloom
Not a creature was stirring;
There just wasn't room;
The stockings were hanging
In numbers so great,
We feared that the walls
Would collapse from the weight!

The children like cattle
Were packed off to bed;
We took a quick count;
There were three-hundred head;
Not to mention the grown-ups--
Those hundreds of dozens
Of uncles and inlaws
And twice-removed cousins!

When outside the house
There arose such a din!
I wanted to look
But the mob held me in;
With pushing and shoving
And cursing out loud,
In forty-five minutes
I squeezed through the crowd!

Outside on the lawn
I could see a fresh snow
Had covered the people
Asleep down below;
And up in the sky
What should strangely appear
But an overweight sleigh
Pulled by countless reindeer!

They pulled and they tugged
And they wheezed as they came,
And the red-suited driver
Called each one by name:
"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer!
Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, comet! On, Cupid!
On Donder and Blitzen!"

"Now, Melvin! Now, Marvin!
Now, Albert and Jasper!
On, Sidney! On, Seymour!
On Harvey and Casper!
Now, Clifford! Now, Max"--
But he stopped, far from through;
Our welcoming house-top
Was coming in view!

Direct to our house-top
The reindeer then sped
With the sleigh full of toys
And St. Nick at the head;
And then like an earthquake
I heard on the roof
The clomping and pounding
Of each noisy hoof!

Before I could holler
A warning of doom,
The whole aggregation
Fell into the room;
And under a mountain
Of plaster and brick
Mingled inlaws and reindeer
And me and St. Nick;

He panted and sighed
Like a man who was weary;
His shoulders were stooped
And his outlook was dreary:
"I'm way behind schedule,"
He said with a sigh,
"And I've been on the road
Since the first of July!"

'Twas then that I noticed
The great, monstrous sack,
Which he barely could hold
On his poor, creaking back;
"Confound it!" he moaned,
"Though my bag's full of toys,
I'm engulfed by the birthrate
Of new girls and boys!"

Then, filling the stockings,
He shook his sad face,
"This job is a killer!
I can't take the pace!
This cluttered old world
Is beyond my control!
There are even millions
Up at the North Pole!"

"Now I'm late!" he exclaimed, "And I really must hurry!
By now I should be over Joplin, Missouri!"
But he managed to sigh as he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Posted by: Victor at 01:14 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 Mince Pie

Posted by: Casca at December 27, 2006 10:07 AM (2gORp)

2 Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, The whole damn family was drunk as a louse. Ma just from the cathouse, and I from the jail, had just settled down for a good piece of tail. When out from the yard there arose such a clatter, I jumped off of Ma to see what's the matter. Away to the window I went like a flash Threw open the shutters and fell flat on my ass. When what to my old bloodshot eyes did appear, A fat assed old man & some run down reindeer Dressed all in red fur and pounding his d***, I knew that old bastard just had to be Saint Nick As drunk, and f***'d up - and I was the same -, he bitched and he swore and he called them by name. "On Donder, on Blitzen. Quick! Over the walls! Hurry now dammit, or I'll cut off your balls." Then up to the roof he stumbled and fell, And came down the chimney like a bat outta hell. He staggered and stumbled and couldn't stand right, That sonuvabitch, drunk, and high as a kite. He spoke not a word, but instead stood and hurled, Such a chunky bile stream, my hair went and curled. He put his finger up by his red nose, and stammered and slurred his dumb stupid prose. And I heard him slur this as he passed out of sight, "Piss on you all, it's one hell of a night".

Posted by: elmondohummus at December 27, 2006 03:16 PM (C6QSe)

3 My daughter occasionally reports learning at the high school that there are too many people in the world. Bunch o'crap, I tell her, but if there's a population explosion it's France's fault. I hear their government's paying young French families to have kids and stay home with them for the first few years.

Posted by: Joules at December 27, 2006 06:05 PM (u4CYb)

4 Man this place has major suckage going on. Anni must be crisping her incommunicado ass in a tropical third world hideaway. Gawd, I hope she's not stealing babies in Africa.

Posted by: Casca at December 28, 2006 08:50 AM (2gORp)

5 Damn you woman! How can you leave us in the hands of the village idiot? I've been reduced to going to the pathetic whiner Moxie's site where one can find an unending stream of self-absorbed pap disguised as thought. She pretends to be a conservative to confuse her adolescent admirers, but she is a defacto totalitarian. Besides being a snorefest, she sucks ass.

Posted by: Casca at December 28, 2006 09:40 AM (2gORp)

6 From A Christmas Carol: ``Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.'' ``Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'' ``If they would rather die,'' said Scrooge, ``they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Posted by: annika at December 28, 2006 12:23 PM (1EshY)

7 Hey!!! Up yours, Cas! I'm the whole state's idiot, than you very much!! Hmmph... Villiage... Passed that level a long time ago...

Posted by: elmondohummus at December 28, 2006 03:48 PM (BjOjj)

8 Of course you have El. I was referring to the idiot who posts uninteresting day-old shit every Wednesday.

Posted by: Casca at December 28, 2006 10:27 PM (2gORp)

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In 1922, as he was finding his voice, e.e. cummings wrote this poem of a tree, as seen thru the eyes of a small child.

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid

look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and I'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

Posted by: Victor at 12:00 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Sometimes, a poem leaps out and practically forces me to pick it for Poetry Day. I found this one in a book entitled Echoes: Poems Left Behind, a collection of poetry by John Ciardi that was published after his death in 1986. It's possible Mr. Ciardi never intended it to be published, or perhaps he wasn't satisfied with it and intended to take it out again in a few years, look at it with fresh eyes, and polish it until it was shining.

I chose this one because it was written 27 years ago today.

December 13, 1979
Three squirrels wound and sprung to this remitted
December day chase tumble tails on the lawn.
They must be winter-sure in the elm, permitted
by a plenty in its boles. There's not one acorn
on or under the oak. They go to go.
But why this lawn party? I think they know

the dog is old and stiff, his monster slacked.
His ears tense toward them but it takes four
deliberate heaves to get his hind legs cocked
as if to spring. And what shall he spring for?
There is no energy after energy.
He quivers feral, but then looks at me

as if I might serve them to him in a dish
like Greeks godsent to the ogre. Of my guilt
that I have uncreatured a world to this mish-mash
whine and quiver half-down in the silt
of a sludged instinct, I toss him a soy bone.
He settles for my bogus and settles down.

And the squirrels spin, almost as if they flew,
to the top of the split shake fence, into the spruce,
across it over the roof, over the yew
and into the hemlock thicket, fast and loose,
as fast as easy, around and around again
in the feast of being able to. Amen.

Posted by: Victor at 08:20 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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In an interview, Ruth Stone offered the following opinion on poetry and fiction:

J.F.Battaglia: You have written many short stories, some published in The New Yorker, in Commentary and elsewhere; what are some distinctions between poetry and fiction?

Ruth Stone: Prose and stories are more objective. Poems are emotional opinion.

JB: How did that get to be?

RS: I think poems are closer to your mad reactions to life. Also to the self, the wounded. I think a lot of poetry comes out of wounds...

Seen in that light, I admit I looked at Ms. Stone's poem about a young girl turning into her mother (published when she was in her sixties!) in a whole new fashion.

Second Hand Coat
I feel
in her pockets; she wore nice cotton gloves,
kept a handkerchief box, washed her undies,
ate at the Holiday Inn, had a basement freezer,
belonged to a bridge club.
I think when I wake in the morning
that I have turned into her.
She hangs in the hall downstairs,
a shadow with pulled threads.
I slip her over my arms, skin of a matron.
Where are you? I say to myself, to the orphaned body,
and her coat says,
Get your purse, have you got your keys?

Posted by: Victor at 05:12 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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