If I\u2019d been Santa Claus<\/strong><\/p>\nIf I\u2019d been Santa Claus<\/p>\n
I wouldn\u2019t have lived in a semi<\/p>\n
in a place in North Yorkshire;<\/p>\n
I\u2019d have set sail from<\/p>\n
my fur-lined igloo once a year<\/p>\n
over the whole sleeping world.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019d have grown a wonderful beard,<\/p>\n
slopped about in an old red dressing gown,<\/p>\n
roaring my head off and left<\/p>\n
a map of wet footprints.<\/p>\n
My best friends would have been<\/p>\n
Thunder and Lightning and Blizzard.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I wouldn\u2019t have met my kids<\/p>\n
but spent the whole year alone<\/p>\n
in my glittering ice-house imagining<\/p>\n
the thing they most wanted<\/p>\n
and leaving it for them<\/p>\n
to find when they woke up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2018d have met only the stars,<\/p>\n
the moon and the velvet dark,<\/p>\n
the owls, the bats, a curious fox<\/p>\n
and the children of strangers<\/p>\n
for one startled moment<\/p>\n
before sleep claimed them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If I\u2019d been Santa Claus<\/p>\n
there\u2019d have been no<\/p>\n
swanky play-stations,<\/p>\n
no naff Disney spin-offs,<\/p>\n
no carrots, no coal, no disappointment,<\/p>\n
no wrinkled apple in the toe of a sock.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Carole Bromley\u2019<\/strong>s first full-length collection, A Guided Tour of the Ice House,<\/em> was published by Smith\/Doorstop in 2011. She teaches Creative Writing for York University and writes a poetry blog at http:\/\/www.yorkmix.com<\/a><\/p>\n(If I\u2019d been Santa Claus<\/em> was first published in A Guided Tour of the Ice House, <\/em>Smith\/Doorstop, 2011)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If I\u2019d been Santa Claus If I\u2019d been Santa Claus I wouldn\u2019t have lived in a semi in a place in North Yorkshire; I\u2019d have set sail from my fur-lined igloo once a year over the whole sleeping world. I\u2019d have grown a wonderful beard, slopped about in an old red dressing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3821"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23933,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions\/23933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}