by Jotham Klein

           Today is Thanksgiving, so as a treat, we have a poem from Jotham Klein, who spun us these rhymes.

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The Thanksgiving Massacre

As you gather round the table
And tuck into your feast
Watch Dad carve the turkey
Slicing into the beast
As the succulent breast comes
With cranberry sauce onto your plate
Think about that turkey you’re devouring
His life, his story, his fate

For that turkey came from a long line
Of Turkey Kings far and wide
His ancestors spread throughout the world
Turkey progenitors multiplied
All was fine with the red men
Who got along with the turkeys quite fine
The men respected the bird’s distance
No turkey ever stepped out of line

But then one day, in Sixteen-Twenty
A strange wooden ship came up on shore
With rippling sails and wooden beams,
A sight turkey had never seen before
And who were these intrepid sailors?
Each one called himself a Puritan
So anal, these Christians, the British kicked them out
And here our story shall begin

But still they almost didn’t make it
They almost didn’t pull through
Until one snow-filled day, a red man came
And offered them a helping hand or two
The Puritans figured, how do we properly thank
Those natives who saved our asses?
Stealing their land would be saved for later –
First, a summer feast, open to all the masses!

The red men brought some carrots
The white men brought some maize
The chief offered up a peace pipe
And created a purple haze
Which brought on a huge case of the munchies
That no vegetable platter could rectify
Those stoners decided that those funny turkeys
Would their stomachs, satisfy

And who did they happen to see there
But a young gobbler pecking the ground
The Indians set on him in a hungry sprint
And the young turkey was no longer around
It continued through meadows and forests
When it was all done and said
The land was filled with our sorrow
The woods and fields running red

And so the Thanksgiving meal
Passed into history
It is a thankful holiday for all
Except us, you can see
So think about that as you cram
Your greasy face full of stuffing
Think about the systematic destruction
That left us turkeys with nothing

But we now have formulated our revenge
For this awful genocide
On the day before Thanksgiving,
We will commit mass turkey suicide
You’ll have nothing to eat on Thanksgiving
You’ll make a fuss and on Canada declare war
We will die, gobbling contentedly
For your puny holiday will be no more!