Poetry Thursday 123 - Santy Claws

 Just a bit of fun that isn't dependent on the expenditure of limited financial resources. Also in celebration of Sunderland's success against the auld enemy.

Santy Claws

 

Santy is a Mackem,

of that ah have nee doubt,

its plain from when he burnt his bot,

the accent of his shout.

Dad had banked the fire up,

to stay in for the neet,

Santa made a slipup,

and also burnt his feet.

ah’d left him leeks and beer,

also a carrot Mam said,

divint forget the reindeer,

ah thowt he’d prefer a Fed.

Suitably replete the owld man got busy,

stacking presents beneath the tree,

continued until he felt quite dizzy,

leaving stuff for you and me.

Up he got, prepared to leave,

and continue on his way,

to please the bairns who still believe,

in magic Christmas Day.

They slept in until 5 o’clock,

and all the leets were on,

stared at the pile of toys in shock,

but Santy Claws had gone.

The pile of bonny paper grew,

there was glitter everywhere,

perhaps in little hearts they knew,

it was mam and dad who care.

Did the bairns get all they wanted,

Playstation 5, new bike or foal,

Santy’s sack with prezzies abounded,

but some received a lump of coal.

If yer’d been bad throughout the year,

and were on his naughty list,

Christmas Day nee time of cheer,

toys and games would be sorely missed.

After, Santy can put up his feet,

share a glass with wor lass,

consider salad an off duty treat,

and look forward to a Happy Christmas.

© David L Atkinson December 2025 

God Bless 

Writing - A Reader's Mind

 The ability to read is probably one of the greatest skills a human can learn. If you require evidence of this, just consider the continuing censorship that governments from every corner of the earth apply to the publishing industry. 

To understand where I am coming from, one should consider what reading is as an activity in itself. Putting it simply, reading is decoding a series of agreed marks into abstract ideas. (Agreed marks = letters). Of course, the nature of the abstract ideas will differ according to the experience of the reader. Hence, censorships go in and out of fashion. What was banned by the Victorians may not be under that cosh in the 21st century. 

The whole idea of someone banning a book you may have written, really depends the values of a culture at any given time. When Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses, I'm pretty sure he wasn't expecting to need to go into hiding for ten years, and that the Iranian government had issued a 'fatwah' a kill order. Similarly, Lady Chatterley's Lover was the source of much giggling in the playground of my junior school in 1960. This is no longer banned. 

Then some regimes ban books because of their idealistic nature. Currently, in the United States, there are suggestions of which books should be removed from school and college libraries, quite often on the basis that they support diversity. 

After WWII, Mein Kampf was banned around the world because it incited antisemitism. It wasn't banned in the US because of the free speech part of the Constitution. No longer the case with diversity. 

In fact, censorship tends to be at the whim of a regime dependent on how it sees threats to its existence. 

So if reading is such a boring activity consider the question - why are books ever banned? 

God Bless 

 

Poetry Thursday 122 - Spirited

 I am closing in on the end of A Christmas Carol, my annual pre-Christmas read, and decided on this longer Mackem offering. 

Spirited  

 

The room was a massive space,  

sparsely decorated with an ornamental tree, 

next to it a huge armchair,  

in it the queerest shadow I’ll ever see,  

with indeterminate and changing shape.  

 

Ye’re the oddest shape I’ve ivver seen,  

what are yer, where’ve yer been?  

The accumulation of over seventy Christmases,  

(heard as if in a dream), 

all of them belong to you.  

 

And what are yer after bonny lad,  

a worse misnomer was nivver used.  

To take you back to when you were bad,  

and show the errors of your ways.  

It’s aa’reet am not that bothered,  

ahd rather gan back ter sleep.  

 

 

Not your choice young man,  

then he showed pictures of my Christmas sins,  

not all seventy-three,  

just those poor examples of me being me.  

 

You want to go back to restful sleep,  

nightmares from that tale, awake will keep? 

 

And the prophesy of the shapeless shade,  

was quite correct for I tossed and turned,  

as in bed I laid,  

until further disturbed by a crying babe.  

 

The room with the tree had an uncertain light,  

that as time went on seemed more steady   

and bright,  

the babe now a strident, belligerent toddler,  

fixed on me a youthful glare.  

 

How today goes is up to you,  

but may be influenced by this view, 

It’s a’reet am not that bothered,  

ahd rather gan back ter sleep.  

 

Not an option – from the young man  

with a fixed glare on my face.  

How’s tha gettin ahd so quick?  

Yer were nowt bura bairn ten minutes ago.  

 

‘Watch folk enjoying the day,  

think on the sagacity of changing your way,  

my time is short and the next may not be as  

kind.’  

 

The next?  

Will tha not give ower and lerus get some sleep man?  

 

Careful, returned the old man,  

with the sunken eyes, 

panting for breath.  

 

 

The room darkened,  

the tree looked black,  

the chair was empty,  

I was shiverin’ with the cauld.  

 

We’s there? I muttered,  

ower scared to taak ower loud,  

knain’ a wes bein’ watched or summat,  

peerin’ into the void like cloud,  

that’s worra thowt it wes.  

 

Then the pictures started,  

as gaps in the voluminous cloud parted,  

then resealed like wounds  

that were magically healed.  

 

The scenes that appeared chilled the blood,  

never intended to do the watcher good,  

rather to slice into a stubborn mindset,  

from a being invisible as yet.  

 

Cold, dank, miserable scenarios,  

avarice, meanness, loneliness,  

and finally dark lonely demise,  

flashed before the eyes.  

 

Enuff! Stop it!  

I get the message.  

Then everything was still.  

 

Aal hat te stop eatin’ cheese for me supper.  

Still, I should invite the neighbours fora cuppa. 

©David L Atkinson December 2025 

God Bless