For Competition 3470, you were invited to submit a very pretty lyric poem about something ugly or unpleasant. Purely as poems, the entries were of an extremely high standard. Not all, however, observed both the rule about being very pretty and the one about the subjects being unpleasant. (Trigger warning: the second of these certainly wasn’t a problem with Martin Brown’s contribution below.) There were near misses for Nick Syrett, Elizabeth Kay, Phillip Sheahan and Revd Dr Peter Mullen, but the £25 vouchers go to:
To a Cockroach
O hail to thee, blithe beauty, dainty sprite;
Light-wingèd dryad of behind the bin!
Shy, gentle nymph, embowered from the light,
With armour iridescent, radiant sheen.
Disturbed, thou glideth with balletic grace
Each pirouette performed with deft caprice;
Adorned with thy majestic carapace
Thou steppeth an enchanting pas de six.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal roach!
Would that I were insouciant as thee;
I’d shed this body, wingless, shell-less, gauche;
We’d live and love in hotels, wild and free!
Upon my transformation Kafkaesque,
My sweet antennae, thorax, pretty head on,
We’d dance our hexapodal arabesque
And sit out the impending Armageddon.
David Silverman
Nature has offered us this filigree,
a silver message from the hours of dark,
a tender, tentative calligraphy
to greet the morning’s sunrise with the lark.
How can we read this coil of cryptic script,
this unexpected tale of wanderings,
as though another life has paused, and dipped
its soul into the well of hidden things?
A moment’s purest wonder and surprise,
an instant’s spell before the restless day
breaks through, and shatters, and the silence dies;
before the headlines’ horrors come our way.
And how a humble slug could enter here
and trace the kitchen’s floor to prove it came
is magic, part of nature’s mystic sphere.
We only have this autograph, this name.
D.A. Prince
I lie abed, now feeble, frail and old,
And gaze on you, a beauty to behold
That sparkles like some wondrous alien sea
With changing colours and consistency.
Watery thin or viscous, red or green,
I marvel at your soft and silvery sheen
And feel consoled and comforted to see
You, separate now, but once a part of me.
Your aim has been to capture and disarm
All hidden threats designed to cause me harm
By shielding me from some untimely end
As might a true and trusted lifelong friend.
To see you here beside me is a sight
That fills my heart with rapturous delight.
Oh, how I curse the nurse who, coming soon,
Will tip you, precious phlegm, from this spittoon.
Alan Millard
Beside the lake, the autumn tree
Its branches spread, a latticed fan
Within its bark, a hollow space
Holds a discarded metal can.
This chalice glowed as twilight fell
The nectar that flowed forth was supped,
The sweet communion of two souls,
This simple tin their loving cup.
He tore the pull ring from its seal
A makeshift band to plight his troth,
She wore the wire upon her finger
A shiny pledge that bound them both.
Then when the two had drunk their fill,
Before they left the weathered ash,
They pressed their token deep within,
Entrusted to the sylvan cache.
Helene Parry
Essence of my very soul!
Rosy brown and pliant shape,
Emerging from my deepest hole
Where such creations seek escape.
Your lone designer, on my throne,
I gently sigh, then let you drop
Between my cheeks, by zephyrs blown,
To limpid pool, with gentle ‘plop’.
And there you float, my latest one,
Whilst I am cleansing, down below,
Then ‘whoosh!’ a flush and you are gone,
Through earthen pipes you swiftly flow.
As I, composed, pause awhile;
A little lighter, I rise, and smile.
Martin Brown
Now my nose is pink and coral,
Dainty pollens itch my throat,
Streaming eyes the shade of rubies,
As I sneeze small droplets float,
Gentle nasal drips like fountains,
Fresh twin rivers cast their spell,
Airways packed as if with briars,
Sinuses like rosebuds swell,
From the depths of silken pillows
On sweet, pretty pills I graze,
Puffy-faced as if with laughter,
Rich with Vaseline and sprays,
Sleepily I blow and sniffle,
Throbbing head like fairy drums,
Poppy-cheeked from my rhinitis,
Verdant mucous this way comes.
Janine Beacham
No. 3473: The doubtful ghost
For Halloween, you are invited to submit an ambiguous ghost story in which the ‘presence’ may or may not be explained by a more mundane phenomenon (150 words maximum). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 21 October.
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