The Wicked Fairy at the Manger

During Christmas, I got one present for myself: U.A. Fanthorpe’s Christmas Poems.  Fanthorpe is a poet, and every year she writes a poem to send out with her Christmas card.  This book is a collection of her annual poems to date.  I picked up the book after a friend read me a couple from her copy.  And one of them seemed very appropriate for today, the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

The Wicked Fairy at the Manger

My gift for the child:

No wife, kids, home;

No money sense.  Unemployable.

Friends, yes.  But the wrong sort —

The workshy, women, wogs,

Petty infringers of the law, persons

With notifiable diseases,

Poll tax collectors, tarts;

The bottom rung.

                            His end?

I think we’ll make it

Public, prolonged, painful.

Right, said the baby.  That was roughly

What we had in mind.