On the first day of Christmas, last year, my true love sent to me, a parrot in a poinciana tree. While I didn't mind the tree, I found the parrot to be very annoying, too talkative, man. Then, I heard it telling John Crow that Oxy was a moron. And, that was its last day in my yard. I made a slingshot and while it was preening its vainglorious self, I released the stone from my slingshot and it landed with a loud thud on the parrot's side. It squawked and flew all the way back to my true love.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, two tough turbots, but I am not into the habit of eating fishes that have two eyes on their left side. Moreover, they are bony and their skin is used to make shoes. So, on my way to work, I just tossed them to my neighbour's emaciated mongrels and wished them well.

big bonfire

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, three 'senseh' fowls, full of fleas. So, to take them out of their misery, I made a big bonfire at the back of my yard and put them over it. You should have heard how they carried on as the orange flames singed whatever feather was left on their little bodies.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, four big enamelled bowls. She knows I love banana porridge, and I was grateful for the containers. However, the bowls had flowers painted all around them. I got an idea. My aloe vera was proliferating and needed space to thrive. I removed the young succulents and replanted them in the enamelled bowls. They look like flowerpots, anyway.

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, five brown pills to cleanse my system, to prepare it for the Christmas delights she was going to cook for me. But I didn't take them; aloe vera is a better purge. I kept the pills though, and right after Christmas dinner, I slipped them into her sorrel.

snakelike creatures

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, six live slippery eels. Delicacies she said they were. I didn't know about that. What I do know is that my stomach is already very delicate and I know for sure that it cannot tolerate those nauseous, snakelike creatures. It was a joy to see them squirm as my neighbour's half-starved mongrels ripped them to shreds.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, seven swine a-singing, and I told the delivery man to keep them. I don't eat pig meat, nor did I want to catch swine flu. But more important, I was not going to cohabit with anything that goes around grunting and squealing. I treasure my peace and sobriety.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, eight large green lizards, saying that they were an endangered species. I brought them to a neighbour's bathroom window and let them in. I stood at my window, listening. Then it came, one horrendous scream, punctuating the stillness of the night as Miss Nosy Parker came face to face with the eight large green lizards. She was seen half-naked, running down the street and shouting, "woieee! woieee! woieee!"

On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, nine statuettes of Macka Diamond, and then it finally dawned on me that my true love was not so true, after all. But I, Oxy Moron, was even more disingenuous, because, before I had accepted my true love's gifts, I should have told her I really don't believe in Christmas, Santa Claus, reindeer, elves and boughs of holly. I was really a dog in a manger. Shame on me, shame.

oxydmoron@gmail.com