T’was the / night before Christmas and every gemsbok

Was a/sleep in his bokbed before 12 o'clock;

Their / little bokstockings were hung on the mantle,

And / playing so softly, Messiah by Hantel.

 

The / girl and boy bokkies were waiting for Santa,

Who was / last sighted somewhere over Atlanta.

And / every kid antelope, oryx and dik-dik,

Ex/pected a visit tonight from St. Nik-Nik.

 

All the small pronghorns and little ibexes,

Were / half asleep from Timbuktu Texas.

All the world over the ungulates slumbered,

Every last sum of their slumber was numbered.

 

When / out in the snoo* came a hullabaloo,

As / Santa blew in with eight tiny gnu.

What gnus, you say? And what of the reindeer?

Well, / Santa had fired every minor and main deer.

 

Blitz was let go, and Prance and Dance,

And / Rudolph had gotten too big for his pants.

The / reindeer union demanded a raise,

Too many perks and personal days.

 

They / wanted healthcare and little gnushoes,

So / Santa brought in a slew of new gnus.

He / added a single gazelle to the herd

(That’s what I heard even though it’s absurd).

 

Truly the gnus were very unruly,

For / wildebeest, though, their manner was gnuly.

But / who knew a gnu could raise such a swell?

This was bad gnus for the lonely gazelle!

 

His name was Fred and his butt was bright red,

Which / glowed in the darkness, behind, not ahead;

Fred's shiny bottom was Kris Kringle's curse,

For it / led all the gnus and Fred in reverse. 

 

Santa’s sled slid all over the place.

With / Fred’s blinding buttocks full in his face.

And / Santa now knew some newly found trues:

Fred’s gaudy arse confuses the gnus.

 

Well, hell’s bells!.. but how could he tell

That / one should use gnus but not a gazelle?

He re/membered that trouble upon the horizon,

When a / gnu with the flu made him borrow a bison.

 

Then / there was the time when the gnus went on strike,

And / mountain goat scabs came in from Peak’s Pike.

But / truly Fred’s tush was a new type of terror:

This ninth Gazelle was an asinine error.

 

Then / suddenly Santa had a big brainy thought:

While / Fred is in front, we will all come to naught;

But, / what if I put him in back of the sleigh?

With his / rear in the rear, we may yet find our way.

 

Santa’s eyes twinkled: It might work, he said,

And a / new gnu position was fitted for Fred.

Santa’s good heart was feeling much merrier;

His / carrier was no longer led by a derrière.

 

 So, to/night as the gemsboks abide in their bed,

Waiting for any good gnus and ol' Fred,

Kris, with a taillight, will win yet again:

Led by Fred's butt, he'll back it on in.

 

 

Michael Roy, Christmas 2007

 

* A nod to Walt Kelly and Pogo Possum:

 

Good King Sauerkraut looked out

On his feet uneven;

All th' snoo lay round about,..

 

"Snoo!?..what's 'snoo'??.."

"Nothing. What's snoo with you?"