Santa\u2019s Little Helpers<\/p>\n
‘Twas the night before Christmas in Bayou St. John
\nWhere no creatures were stirring, on-shore or beyond.
\nAs they nestled together all snug in their beds
\nBungled passes and missed tackles danced in folks\u2019 heads
\nAnd if anything hung from the chimneys with care
\nIt was hope, clinging onto a wing and a prayer.
\nWith a final Hail, Mary and sad Good Night, Moon
\nThe ex-senator crashed as the whole city crooned
\nNot Blue but Red Christmas. The doctor who won,
\nWith scalpel in hand, dreamt of more cuts to come.
\nAnd in dreams, Vitter\u2019s bid to be governor was hampered
\nAt town hall events where he wore only Pampers!
\nAsleep were the chief of police who retired
\nJust in time to miss scandals, his cops who weren\u2019t fired,
\nAnd the folks they forsook. Each and every one braced
\nFor the next blow we\u2019d take for the debt the State faced
\nThanks to Jindal, whom nobody saw anymore.
\nAs we settled to sleep on the crescent-shaped shore
\nIn our City that Care had forgot, it would seem
\nWe would do best to block out two thousand fourteen.
\n We had battened the hatches on Bayou St John,
\nWith the house alarm set and the sensor lights on,
\nWhen a bellow resounded: \u201cWhoa, Prozac! Stop, Paxil!
\nCymbalta and Zoloft, steer clear of the axle!\u201d
\nTo the landing I flew and posthaste to the door
\nWhere, what do I see gathered out on the shore?
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a new team,\u201d says Santa. \u201cI needed a lift,
\nAnd this is the group that showed up for the shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
But his tale takes Kris Kringle so long to complete,
\nWe are forced to plop down next to Lexapro\u2019s feet.
\n\u201cIt all started,\u201d he says, \u201cwhen the elves wouldn\u2019t ride:
\nThey assumed, at the border, they\u2019d all be denied!
\nElves of color were sure they\u2019d be taken for thugs
\nAs they climbed from dark chimneys; the girls feared date-drugs
\nWould be snuck in the milk left with cookies and cake.
\n(That Doc Huxtable pill was a tough one to take.)
\nThen it snowballed. They asked, \u201cCould our sleigh disappear
\nLike the plane from Malaysia that vanished this year?\u201d
\n\u201cIn the uppermost skies, could Ebola glom on?\u201d
\n\u201cCould our party be kidnapped by Boko Haram?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat of ground-to-air missiles above the Ukraine?\u201d
\n\u201cOr an ISIS attack?\u201d \u201cOr, suppose we\u2019re detained
\nBy CIA agents who torture and beat us?\u201d
\nBut, then, guess what happened? \u2014The deer that would lead us
\nGave notice! Beset by depression and panic,
\nThey feared they might plunge us into the Atlantic.
\nI phoned a temp agency Rudolph approved
\nTo request cheerful deer that could fill some big hooves.
\nOn the plus side, they sing the song \u201cHappy\u201d all day
\nWhich encourages us\u2014but they can\u2019t lead a sleigh!
\nYet despite two left feet guiding each of those deer
\nThey can clap\u2014and it works, since it got the sleigh here!
\nIn a blink, Serotonin kicks in and they rise
\nClimbing over our banks through the overcast skies;
\nAs they bump through the clouds on a course to Havana,
\n\u201cHappiness is the truth\u201d sing the reindeer and Santa.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 S. Lyman New Orleans 23 December 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Santa\u2019s Little Helpers ‘Twas the night before Christmas in Bayou St. John Where no creatures were stirring, on-shore or beyond. As they nestled together all snug in their beds Bungled passes and missed tackles danced in folks\u2019 heads And if anything hung from the chimneys with care It was hope, clinging onto a wing and a prayer. With a final Hail, Mary and sad Good Night, Moon The ex-senator crashed as the whole city crooned… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1kHSD-5fm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20173,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20172\/revisions\/20173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangermond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}