Black Christmas At Wood Grove (A Jolly Xmas Rhyme) - Oscar Milde

The Browns were tending their garden,
Jack Wilson was washing his car,
Rose was unloading her presents,
while William was bound for the bar.

A cat was asleep on a lawn
as puppies played tag round a tree.
A shadow passed over Wood Grove.
It was Saturday, just after three.

The ground seemed to suddenly tilt.
A resounding tremor was felt.
The sky turned hot as a furnace
and the elm trees started to melt.

The air grew steadily hotter
as house-windows splintered like ice.
The smoke-grey cat turned into ash.
The pups spun like tumbling dice.

Wood Grove was changed in an instant:
red-brick houses grew suddenly pale,
chimney-pots tumbled like skittles.
Far off, sirens started to wail

then faded into a stillness
where bird-song and breathing had ceased.
There was nothing but towering silence
and a mushroom cloud to the east.

The Browns became garden compost
while Jack and his clean car went pop;
William exploded; Rose never
unloaded. Everything came to a stop.

Black ashes gathered like snowflakes,
enveloping, drifting and thick.
Whatever had passed over Wood Grove,
it certainly wasn’t St Nick.

Oscar Milde