Spectator competition winners: toe-curling Valentine poems

In Competition No. 3286, you were invited to submit a toe-curling Valentine poem to Harry, or to the love object of your choice.

Meghan and her frightful poems were the inspiration for this assignment but perhaps we should cut her some slack; as Carol Ann Duffy has said, love poetry is the hardest to write. Mindful that some may be heartily sick of the Sussexes and their shenanigans, I widened the brief, and while most of you had Harry in your amorous sights, other love objects ranged from Sergei Lavrov to Nicola Sturgeon.

Honourable mentions, in a smallish and patchy entry, go to Richard Spencer, Robert Schechter, Susan Firth and Nicholas Lee. Also eye-catching were John O’Byrne’s tri-ple haiku to Alexa and David Shields’s Betjeman-inflected Valentine to Jacob Rees-Mogg. The winners, printed below, earn their authors £25 each.

The first time that I saw your face
It hit me like a big spotlight,
Or like the Pacific wowed Cortez
(No call to fat-shame him, alright?)

My love for you is fabulous,
More powerful than weed or coke,
As precious as an Oscar win.
I’m mad for you because you’re woke.

A lover and a fighter both,
In bed you are red hot.
I love you for your sexy beard
And for the Taliban you shot.

Dear Harry, though your family
Puts you down to fifth in line,
You’ll always head my hit parade.
Please be my valentine.

Basil Ransome-Davies

Flame-headed hero! Husband! You’re no spare!
Forget those mainstream media barbs and spears;
you’re cute, like little pandas are, and rare,
so turn your martyr’s cheek to envious Piers.
Now, speaking of those pandas in line three,
our romance is no muddling confusion;
we’re black and white in concert, you and me,
like zebra stripes, a ying-and-yangy fusion.
I am your Princess, you my Prince, and we
shall live out Californian dreams beneath
blue skies while telling all when on TV
to Oprah, smiling smiles of whitened teeth.
Oh, Harry, though you sadly got frostbitten,
with you, eternally, I shall be smitten.