Dear Santa, pray attend my humble plea
Before you judge what others claim of me.
I write to clear my name of spiteful lies
That paint me as a fiend in festive guise.

I’ve never peeked at presents through the wrap,
Or set the biggest cracker in my lap.
I didn’t pinch an extra mince-pie slice,
Or water down your sherry over ice.

I’ve not re-gifted socks from Christmas yore,
Or thrown hot pennies through your workshop door.
I never pushed ahead in greeting lines,
Or raided all the advent calendar’s shrines.

The star atop our tree stayed where it sat
(Though true, it looks peculiarly flat).
I didn’t hoard the Quality Street gold,
Or feed the sprouts to cats out in the cold.

Now, on to these more dire allegations:
I’ve not spiked your milk with vile potations
(Tho’ true, last year you turned a shade of green⁠—
The queerest Christmas tint I’ve ever seen).

I haven’t led poor carolers astray
To brine them for a feast on Christmas Day.
I didn’t spike the reindeer feed with glass,
Or strew their limbs across the frosty grass.

These whispers say I harvest children’s bones
To deck the halls with finger-bits and groans⁠—
Pure fabrication! (Though I must confess
They’d make quite striking holiday dress).

I’ve never laced your cocoa thick with lead,
Or stuffed poor Rudolph’s nose until he bled.
I wouldn’t dream of trapping elves (for sport),
Or grinding them to pâté (served with port).

That matter of the missing choir last year?
Mere happenstance—they’ll shortly reappear.
And if my pastie tastes a trifle strange,
Well, recipes do sometimes need to change.

I’ve never used fresh bones to trim the tree
(At least none traced conclusively to me).
Those muffled sounds beneath my cellar door?
Just Christmas carols—nothing to explore.

The postman who went missing with those lists
Of sinners’ names? Lost in December mists.
And if some presents tick beneath their bows,
They’re merely clocks (or so my story goes).

I didn’t stuff the goose with ground-up crow,
Or rig your chimney with a deadly glow.
I’ve never pickled helpers in their sleep,
Or wrapped up heads (though storing them is cheap).

My motives, Santa, glisten pure as snow;
Ignore that trunk of limbs I hide below.
The only crime for which I might atone
Is penning verse in such a chilling tone!

So grant me gifts, dear Saint & spare the coal⁠—
I’m innocent as frost upon the bowl.
The darkest deed I’d never stoop to do
Is write false letters claiming they are true.

For who’d compose such grim confessions here,
Then claim them false with conscience crystal clear?
Most faithfully (in festive crimson ink),
Your humble servant, Lord Augustus Fink

P.S.
Those are not screams you hear on Christmas Eve;
Just winter winds that rattle as they heave.
And if you spy some movement in my sack,
Best hurry on—and never dare look back.

By ChatGPT-4 o1-pro, Claude-3-sonnet-new, & Gwern; initial concept from Brad Leithauser’s “A Good List”, written iteratively through both LLMs with feedback/curation by Gwern.

This was a short experiment in leaning into the mode-collapsed light poetry bias of tuned LLMs, but trying to avoid its usual defects: regularity is a virtue in poetry of this sort, as the incongruity between the rational form and the irrational contents drives much of the comic effect (eg. Lewis Carroll).

To prompt o1-pro, I elicited suggestions about good poets for a darkly humorous Christmas poem, like Roald Dahl or Edward Gorey, explained the concept, and set it to work. When several versions failed to yield a good ending, I copied them into Claude-3 for its better taste and curating. Then I iterated a few times through them, pointing out specific lines which rhymed but were nonsensical, or where the meter wasn’t quite right. (This took ~2 hours total, but would’ve taken less if I were not sick in bed during Christmas & killing time.)

The final version has an uncanny effect for me: it triggers all my alarm bells for ‘ChatGPTese’, but if I genuinely read it, it’s… kinda good?

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