Poetry Corner

Fanny Craddock

Don't give up the day job Theresa.

idle

This is enetered on behalf of the brilliant Nick Drew, who won the poetry competition on my own insignificant blog last autumn, during conference season. You have to work out why it does not rhyme, as it were. At party conference in September Gordon Brown his fate confronts He must contain his throbbing brain As he recalls some famous predecessors He thinks of Blair who wooed the bankers Of Kinnock and his way with words Of Foot and Benn and such great men From whom poured forth such steaming prose The party faithful sing of succour For members of the working class The song was writ by some bright wit Who knew not elbow from his thigh But haunting Brown’s the thought of loss A snap election might fortell Let him lose sleep, the brooding creep And may he after rest in Kircaldy

salieri

Oh dear. They don't teach scansion any longer, do they? It's probably too elitist even for the Opposition. I have grave reservations about this competition, Peter - unless of course you can persuade the Speccie's billiant weekly parodists to join in.

Time will Tell

Time Theresa went - she is an embarrassment and liability.

London Calling

At Downing Street the other day, A policeman complained about his pay, But sadly no one heard his plight so he locked number ten and said Goodnight. When morning came and the homeless had moved in, Gordon reached for his glass and Gin, only to find that his cabinet lay bare, 'I know said the Homeless 'Nobody Cares'.

dave, surrey

man hands on misery to man it deepens like a coastal shelf get out as early as you can and don't try writing poetry yourself

Verity

Time Will Tell - Yes. She doesn't only look like NuLabour,but is as tone deaf as NuLabour. Please, please, please, please, Theresa, take your tone-deaf lack of scansion and your kitten heels and your smug face and your clothes that are draped to hid the fat, a la Labourites Harriet Harman, Ruth Kelly, Hazel Blears, etc, over to the socialist side. We can only benefit.

Fergus Pickering

I watch the bastards moving in To tax my whisky and my gin And tear me from my life of sin. Alas that any man should sink, Enfeebled by the demon drink, To depths too dire to even think. Before I tumble on my face And seal my doom and my disgrace The Government is on my case. They beggar me to save my soul And imitate the Saviour's role To justify the cash they stole. Christ, who turned water into wine, Watch over me and what is mine, Turn all these devils into swine. I don't know if this is political but, by God, it is heartfelt

Walt Whitman

In Downing Street, I heard a grunt. It came from Brown, the useless...

Elizabeth Elliot-Pyle

Could I please nominate Walt Whitman's poem as the winner. Just about sums up the whole sorry mess.

Time Will Tell

Verity - She has done huge damage to the party - remember her infamous description of it as the Nasty Party and from which it has yet to fully recover. Her obsession with her appearance says it all - brown bomber jacket in the Commons and her Marcosian obsession with shoes. Her majority at the last election was 6,231 so it is a safe Tory seat if an alternative were to come foreward. She is not fit to sit on the front bench and the sooner David Cameron takes action the better.

Tiberius

There was a p m with a goat; Whose flourish did lack a good quote; While he spake not in lies, He’d abuse his brown eyes, And still strike a clunking bum note. With apologies to everyone.

RW

Brown's conundrum: "We cannot revive old factions/ We cannot restore old policies/ Or follow an antique drum./ These men, and those who opposed them/ And those whom they opposed/ Accept the constitution of silence/ And are folded in a single party./ Whatever we inherit from the fortunate/ We have taken from the defeated/ What they had to leave us." *From TS Eliot, "Little Gidding"; I haven't changed a word.*

john problem

Winter is a-cummin in, Lhude sing 'Goddam'. Bloody Labour lot still in, Lhude sing 'Goddam'. Maketh shiver, starveth liver, Lhude sing 'Goddam'. Goddam, Goddam, Goddam, Goddam, Get off your bike, young Cam.

idle

Re my post of 6.44pm 20 March - it is almost impossible to read the poem, because the comments get compressed into single paragraph form, so lines run together and verses lose their independence from one another, so to speak. Please get your tech geeks to put this right.

RW

I'm sure the text wrapping problem is caused by the different way that Windows and Mac OS handle carriage returns and line feeds. For some reason the comment script text editor seems not to recognise carriage returns sent from Windows machines, whereas Mac users are fine - they just press Enter to start a new line and a second Enter for a new paragraph. Is it not possible to fix this - and hopefully also insert a preview facility?