Monday, December 20, 2010

If Moore's "A Visit from St Nicholas" were written by Robert W. Service

Have you ever read a poem by Robert Service? He's probably best known for "The Cremation of Sam Magee."

This is a parody of "A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement C. Moore, written by Frank Jacobs (in the style of Robert Service).

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up on a Christmas Eve one year,
All full of cheap whiskey and hoping like hell that St. Nick would soon appear,
When right through the door and straight out of the night, which was icy and cold as a freezer,
Came a broken-down sled, pulled by eight mangy dogs, which were whipped by an old bearded geezer.

His teeth were half missing, and flapping his frame was a tatter of red-colored clothes;
He was covered with snow from his head to his toe, and an icicle hung from his nose;
The miners all cheered when the geezer appeared, and the poker game stopped in mid-bet;
Each sourdough smiled like a young, happy child at the thought of the gifts he would get.

They pushed him aside and went straight for his bag to be sure that they'd all get their share;
And, oh, how they cried when they found that inside there was nothing but old underwear;
So they plugged the old geezer, which was a great shame, for if anyone there had been sober,
He'd have known double-quick that it wasn't St. Nick, 'cause it only was early October.

5 comments:

FreshHell said...

Ha! Love it. Best Christmas-related thing I've seen or heard so far this season.

Florinda said...

As I think you know, I’m not big on poetry, and I don’t know who Frank Jacobs or Robert Service are - but regardless, this is just plain funny.

Care said...

LOL! (I'm with Florinda on this.)

Jeanne said...

FreshHell, glad you enjoyed it. I guess I had to work in an ironic Christmas thing, after coming out in favor of non-ironic sweater wearing...

Florinda, glad you enjoyed it too. The Robert Service poem I link to is worth reading. He's really good read out loud to impressionable children!

Care, glad it made you laugh.

Eric said...

Frank Jacobs has written parodies on poems (and has provided lyrics for musical spoofs) for MAD Magazine. This was part of a "round robin" of poetry -- if "The Raven" had been written by Joyce Kilmer; if "Trees" had been written by John Masefield; if "Sea Fever" had been written by Carl Sandburg; if "Chicago" had been written by Rudyard Kipling; if "Gunga Din" had been written by Clement Clarke Moore; if "The Night before Christmas" had been written by Robert W. Service; if "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" had been written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; and on and on until if "Casey at the Bat" had been written by Edgar Allen Poe! It was hilarious, to say the least. Jacobs is a very talented poet. In addition, during the 1960's, he wrote a children's book called Alvin Steadfast on Vernacular Island.