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The Ghost of Christmas Present
Terrence the Turkey was feeling quite perky
Passing time in his rafter and doing no harm
No fighting nor squabbling, just gabbling and gobbling
Turkey talking turkey down on the farm.
Whilst having a natter, tame turkey type chatter
Before his two eyes his mate Thomas got nabbed
His shocked first reaction was frozen inaction
And Terrence the Turkey got clobbered and grabbed
Swept up and taken, rough handled and shaken
How consciousness left him, he just could not tell
Each turkey's departure was into a cart where,
Apparently lifeless, he went in as well
No warning, no telling, what fate was befelling
If hours passed or days, it was all the same
In discomfort reposing, dazing or dozing,
Odd dreams drifted in and out of his brain
Noise most unseeming broke into his dreaming,
Not knowing his life was temp'rarily spared,
Unexpectedly waking, unsteady and shaking
Up on the worktop where food was prepared
The noise he could hear was disturbingly near
Close but concealed by a large wooden door
Glancing around, and then looking down
He noticed a large sack of flour on the floor
His feathers felt icky, unpleasantly sticky
He pondered a possible wash or a shower
The door opened fast with an explosive blast
And Terrence the Turkey flopped into the flour
The sack, once inside in, seemed most prudent hiding
He waited and listened but elsewise kept quiet
He thought that a venue, where he topped the menu
Could benefit all with a turkeyless diet
The kitchen commotion was forming the notion
His unplanned evasion was causing a stink
The staff were all sharing some unfestive swearing
And Terrence the Turkey started to think
In quiet apprehension avoiding attention
Praying time might provide him an exit to find
Craftily shaping, a plan for escaping
Formed in the bird's meleagridine mind
Patiently hiding - the noise was subsiding
He ventured a peek at what might be around
No-one in his seeing, he worked on his fleeing
whilst taking no action that might be a sound
Though fate had, quite blindly, treated him kindly
He guessed that he could not hide long in a sack
For fortune is fickle and likely to pickle
Good luck will go so far and then it turns back
In quiet turkey stepping he silently crept in
The dark to another place where he might hide
Onward and upward, what seemed like a cupboard,
Seemed also more prudent for hiding inside.
He was not in the knowing that where he was going
Though apparently safe and snug fit like a glove
Had a purpose, unnerving, of vertically serving
The dining room located just up above
And so, when it shifted, his hidey was lifted
Above was delivered and catches released
With his haven unsealed, the bird was revealed
Like Banquo, whose ghost form appeared at the feast
Abruptly the turkey erupted berserkly
Across the long table so carefully laid
Flour-flecked and shrieking, his spectral white streaking
Devil-possessed like a hell-despatched shade
Wine glasses shattered and cutlery scattered
Guests gaped aghast as food scattered as well
Determined and manic (not aerodynamic),
He flew with the grace of an ostrich from hell
Escaping enabled he dropped from the table
Flapped for stability down to the floor
While all looked askance, he saw his best chance
And, floured feathers fluttering, fled for the door
With observers all shocked, his flight was unblocked
And outside ahead his sweet freedom showed
Without hesitation, his evacuation
Entered the daylight and sped up the road
In fields nearby passing, the sheep were all grassing
(Though new social flocking perturbed them a lot)
But still paused their pasture to watch the departure,
Puzzled why they had been dropped from the plot.
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