More Schoolwork.

With a lack of anything new to say, and forgetting everything I had thought of to write on here over the last few days (I really do need to start writing these down as I think of them), I'm putting up my latest piece of schoolwork. We had to take a nursery rhyme or children's story and write an alternate view of it. A more adult version. Darker maybe. Anyway, here's what I came up with. See what you think.

Nicolas by Paul Askew

i
I am Old Man Nicolas,
this is my life.
A year of near solitude,
just for one night.
A year of near back-breaking
labour and trial,
to give out some joy
to every child.

ii
The night that my wife died
I cherished her hand,
and the longest of winters
fell over Lapland.
I distanced myself from
the workers, and here
I now spend all my time in
the company of Deer.
A year of near lonliness
drives a man wild
and it’s hard just to live off
the words of a child.

iii
So now the sleigh’s loaded
It’s off and away,
time to give everyone
their Christmas Day.
Old bones in the cold
start to put up a fight.
How many more times
shall I see this night?
The sacks, they get heavier
every year,
my eyes barely open,
so tired, so weary.
I just about make it
and finish my rounds,
before I give in and
my eyes settle down.


iv
I feel myself slump
to the left and then fall,
then feel myself weightless
as nothing at all.
I feel my head suddenly
clear of all clouds,
I feel my limbs dangling
above me somehow.
I feel myself calm,
so pastoral, so mild,
I feel my goodbyes
said to every child.