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Thursday 4 December 2008

Competition

Child's play

In Competition No. 2550 you were invited to submit a children’s story or a poem written in the style of an established author who has never published in that genre. The challenge produced a lacklustre response in the main with a few top-notch exceptions. The entry was split evenly between verse and prose, and it’s hats off to the poets, who triumphed this week. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. George Simmers scoops the bonus fiver. I’ve got infants on the brain as I’m having a baby soon. In my absence you’ll be in the capable hands of James Young. Please note the new email address for entries.

His boot was fashioned for the spade’s lug.

That man with the big ears wipes his forehead
As he stands satisfied above smell of fresh diggings,
Above the knobbled potatoes and the muscular worms.

‘May I dig also? May I?’
The boy calls out to him, as he slunches through the yard,
Past the turnip snedder, past the rusted bucket.

He desires a spade, its solid heft in his hands.
He wants it so much that his head jangles.

‘You’ve nothing to dig with,’ replies the big man,
Turning to work again, with his grandfather’s movement.

The boy feels in his inner pocket, to pull out
A plastic Bic. ‘Let me dig with this, then.’
Oh you clever little Noddy!
George Simmers/Seamus Heaney

School is all chairs and ten-times-tables,
and a turn-up for the book:
 
your coats hang down when they are hung up
on a hook like a question mark.
 
When the bell goes, the teacher comes,
and you sit up, every time you sit down.
 
Assembly is being as quiet as pencil rubbers
unless the head teacher is a bit funny.
 
Playgrounds are runnier than eggs,
and everyone wears a bright red face:
 
they look like tomatoes and plums.
Homework is schoolwork. This is why
 
parents do not know the answers.
In science, the sun is a star, and very far,
 
and Earth is a planet, and warmer than Mars, so now there are no more Martians.
Bill Greenwell/Craig Raine

Twinkle, twinkle, little star:
Who in hell d’you think you are,
Winky-blinking up on high —
Why do you wreck my evening sky?

Far-off, futile, clichéd, crass,
You’re nothing but a bunch of gas,
A sniff, a whiff, an exhalation
Of some crummy constellation.

Perseus, Pisces, Pleiades —
Tell them apart? What, me? Oh, puh-lease!
Who cares they cannot fail or falter?
None ever led a girl to Altar.

Don’t wish upon ’em: most of all,
Never imagine one will fall.
Stars sneer benignly, make us weep;
That’s how it is, my dear — now sleep!
Mike Morrison/Dorothy Parker

I had no handle on the triple porridge theft/unauthorised bed use/vanishing blonde case when the phone rang. I broke off the conversation with the bluebottle and answered. It was a dame worried about her son Jack ruining the family fortunes on unwise investments. I took the case. He needed a good broker, not a shamus. I needed the money. The dame could pay. It had started with cattle and was now beans. Probably narcotics. What could she do? He was too old for the King Herod Kindergarten School so I got his address and drove over. Out back was a tree the size of an actor’s ego. Through the branches came the biggest punk I had ever seen, dead or alive. This one was dead. Jack followed, alive. ‘He was a serial killer. I plugged him before he could branch out.’ The dame had no cause for worry. Jack had a future in timber.
J. Seery/Raymond Chandler

Your comfort blanket’s soft and warm,
You want it near you every day.
It saves you from all sorts of harm
And it will never go away.

But mummy had one, and it’s gone —
And daddy’s too. The human cup
Will brim with loss as life goes on.
It’s simply part of growing up.

One day yours too will disappear,
No panic-tantrums call it back.
You’ll blame your parents, loud and clear,
When all the world is cold and black.
D.A. Prince/Philip Larkin

It was a dreary, dank evening when Prince Alessandro reached the Hidden Palace in search of the Slumbering Princess. The edifice stood in a forest of grim, ruined oaks. A dense, oppressive miasma, scarcely affording sufficient air for human breath, clung about its crumbling, mouldering stones. A ghastly and lurid light hung over all. Within the hideous structure lay the form of the Sleeping Princess, who would awaken at a kiss, and reward her awakener with the legacy of her line. He passed through the gaping, rusty gates, and through many vaulted passages lined with weird paintings and fantastical sculptures, until he reached the Princess’s secluded chamber. He kissed her lips lightly, and her eyes slowly opened. ‘Alas, the legacy of my line is but a curse!’ the maiden cried mournfully. And the Green Plague held illimitable dominion over the Prince and the Princess for ever after.
Michael Cregan/Edgar Allan Poe

No. 2553:  Scorn not the Mistress... 
You are invited  to write a sonnet by the Mistress replying to the author of Sonnet 130. Entries to ‘Competition 2553’ by 10 July  or email jamesy@greenbee.net.

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