A New Regime (I.P.)

There’ve been great changes at the North Pole
as Father Christmas has relinquished his role
and we shall have a newly formed enterprise.
A shipping magnate has bought the franchise
for delivering the presents at Christmas time.
His means of transport are entirely maritime
and since he considers the reindeers obsolete
he apparently intends to use his large fleet.
He must act ruthlessly and not be at all timid:
Dasher has to go and so do Comet and Cupid
in addition to Prancer, Rudolph and Dancer
who has been known to be a bit of a chancer,
going recklessly through a red traffic light
and ignoring the speed limit, driving at night.
In place of Cupid, whom the Greeks call Eros,
we’ll have a sea pilot by the name of Stavros
who will take one big ship full of containers
and the benefits accrued couldn’t be plainer:
the cost is slashed by the economy of scale,
so this innovative strategy no one can bewail
apart from the deer, such sticks in the mud,
who now have nothing to do but chew the cud.

© Luigi Pagano 2015