Spectator Competition: In out, in out

For Competition 3397 you were invited to recast the ‘Hokey-Cokey’ in the style of a poet of your choice.

An appreciative nod to Tracy Davidson’s William McGonagall: ‘And the whole body should feel the vibration/ As your waggling appendage commits oscillation.’ High fives also go to David Blakey, Max Gutmann, J.S. White, Peter Smalley, Tom Adam, Bob Newman and Elizabeth Kay. The prizes go to those below.

They fuck you up, these outs and ins,
The more so if you’ve had a drink
And can’t tell low from upper limbs
Or right from left; it’s hell, you’ll think.

But then you’re told to shake about
And lose such focus as you’d got,
This dance is fun to watch, no doubt,
But for participants it’s not.

That’s what it’s all about, you’re told.
Embarrassed at your drunken flail,
You pick your specs up, feeling old,
And hobble home, an epic fail.

Adrian Fry/Philip Larkin

When I consider, though my light is spent,
The sounds of merrymaking echoing,
I hear the dancers gather in a ring,
’Tis said herewith that this is their intent:
To thrust one arm first in, then out, and shake it
Then, turning, guide the other in and out,
E’er now each limb is shaken all about,
I fondly ask them why they undertake it,
In such a way can God be glorified?
’Tis not what it is all about, I fear;
Betimes, whole body in, they sound more frantic.
Yet God has bless’d me, though of light deny’d,
And spared me one more heavy yoak to bear,
I cannot see the dancers’ foolish antics.

Sylvia Fairley/John Milton

It’s no go my left leg in, nor yet my left leg out
For its dancing skills are minimal and, beyond all possible doubt,
The same is true of my right leg too. And I’ve better things to do
Than shake alternate limbs about with God only knows quite who.
It all looks too frenetic and it doesn’t look much like fun.
So I’ve no intention of joining in unless at the point of a gun.
I’ve