Nasty Noel

              NASTY NOEL
HENDERSON NYLROD
Angels we have heard on high
won't you sing us a nice Noel?
with shepherds and Wise Men
and holly and ivy
and a partridge in a pear tree.
0 Tannenbaum, King of the Woods,
evergreen leaves and candles ablaze
life self-renewing, light returning.
November's waning sun had warned
our mortal souls to be afraid
of cold, of gloomy drizzly dusk
and stranded cars on slushy back roads . .. .
Tell us spring will soon be here!
Jolly old Saint Nicholas, turn your ear this way,
tell us what you have for us on this happy day;
Giver of good and perfect gifts,
and of the duplicates to take back to the store
joy of the merchants please give us some more.
An atom-ray gun or a cowboy suit
or a Baby-Jesus doll with a halo that really
shines in the dark!
But the angels didn't have a nice Noel to sing
They sang about peace on earth
and sent a bunch of dirty shepherds
to see a refugee,
a beggar baby in a barn ....
No cradle? No bed?
No, a manger, they said;
No hospital? No clinic?
No, a shed, they said;
a smelly old stall where the cattle are fed;
So the angels didn't have a nice sweet clean
Baby Jesus.
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And as for the Tree?
The angels didn't have a pine tree either;
No French hens, no lords a-leaping, no boars' heads
a-flaming,
His folks did scrape up two turtledoves
but the priest took them
And when Jesus got to the Tree it was bare
only two branches
and no evergreen needles; only nails.
And what about Ole Nick?
turned out he was The Other Side.
Whenever the winter hits bottom -- =i and the back-to-school buying levels off,
along comes Mammon with that red-nosed reindeer
and retail sales go up thirty points. .
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