Tick Tock! Poem by David Lewis Paget

There once was a time
When there was but one,
He came in a sleigh with his bells turned on,
With a long white beard and a fat red pelt
And a tassle and a bobble and a Sam Browne belt!

Just once in the year
He'd appear on high,
With reindeers, winging through the stars in the sky,
And he'd bring all the presents that the kids desired,
They'd send him all their letters in the smoke from the fire.

But the year came round
When it all went wrong,
While singing and a-playing of the reindeer song,
For a boy lay awake while the world was asleep
As Saint Nick clambered down the chimney-piece.

The fairy on the tree
Looked down and around
To the holly and the mistletoe, and then, she frowned!
For the boy sat and listened to the grandfather clock,
As the old clock muttered to the hearth - Tick! Tock!

Then a shower of soot
And the old black boots,
As Santa came a-calling in his old red suit,
But he saw a little movement, hidden by the tree
And he roared -'No presents for the likes of thee! '

He turned to the hearth
To the chimney-piece,
As the boy sprang out with a whimpered: 'Please! '
But the rules had been written by the man in the hood,
'I only leave presents where the children are good! '

The boy thought quick,
He'd heard 'Tick! Tock! '
He opened up the front of the grandfather clock,
Then said, 'That's fine, in a goody-goody home,
But what about the kids who are bad to the bone? '

Then he caught St Nick
By his Sam Browne belt,
Pulled him off his balance in his old red pelt,
Then stuffed him in the front of the grandfather clock
That had muttered to the blinking of the tree, Tick! Tock!

The boy then turned
The key in the lock,
Imprisoned him forever in the grandfather clock,
He took all the presents from the old man's sack,
And once he took the presents there was no going back!

There's no more Santa
And there's no more sleigh
For it got a parking ticket on the very next day,
And the parking inspector set the reindeer free,
For no-one asked the question - 'Where can he be? '

So now there are streets full
Of men in red suits,
With their false white beards, and their fake black boots
With the only real Santa, imprisoned in a clock,
He's jammed against the pendulum, it can't - Tick! Tock!

11 December 2009