I’ve Had a Lousy Xmas

ROGER McGOUGH

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I have had a lousy Xmas

I have had enough of chickens’ legs

and breasts and parsons’ noses

of mistletoe and white draining-board sandwiches.

I have raped a packet of ‘pleasurable Players’

(to symphonic accompaniment)

and have drunk

five million bottles of Guinness

(daily).

I have had a lousy Xmas

I have driven a tinfoil turkey

through the jolly, hollied streets streets of Liverpool

shouting: ‘Get stuffed’

to the plum-duffed little people

the mince-pied

pie-eyed little people

dying in their decorated parlours.

I have had a lousy Xmas

I have received presents

from all my enemies:

a portrait of the Queen

back copies of Encounter and London Magazine

a bar of Lifebuoy toilet soap

a gamekeeper’s outfit

and an LP of this poem.

At tea on Boxing Day

I pulled a cracker

and out popped dead North Vietnamese

and South Vietnamese

and I wept

into my trifle.

I have had a lousy Xmas

because I believe in Santa Claus

and someone’s gone

and crucified him.

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