2021 in sonnets

In Competition No. 3232, you were invited to retell a news story from the past year in sonnet form. An excellent entry this week included submissions ranging far and wide, from Harry Patch and the Everly Brothers to Alaskan walruses and Jeff Bezos’s penis. Commendations to Josephine Boyle, C. Paul Evans, Dorothy Pope, R.M. Goddard, Douglas Hall and Martin Elster, and £20 each to those printed below.

For roofer Charlie Perry and his mates It was a time of Strongbow and cocaine, The chance to nullify decades of pain By getting early into altered states Then watching, with the pride that elevates, As English football claimed a cup again. In an uplifting, patriotic vein They crashed and bunged their way through Wembley’s gates. Anarchy in the UK? This was it — A zonked-out yahoo mob rampaging free, The unleashed Id, the tribe that lost its head. A bottom was exposed, a flare was lit. That, and a shootout loss to Italy, Became England’s epitome. ’Nuff said. Basil Ransome-Davies

Your green bins brim with cardboard: watch it soften, Since impulse-buying’s never out of date — A click, a new arrival. More than often, They’ll overflow, while in West Texas waits The profiteer who crammed your waste with packing. A most suspicious bulge has filled his pockets. His bank accounts are full. They’re almost cracking; And now he’s used your wallet on some rockets.   Your Christmas gifts have furnished him a perq: The chance to charge the rich ten million quid. Today he’s boldly sent up Captain Kirk, Who wept to be in space (oh yes he did!). Around the pad, the rich build airy castles, While at your door, the driver stands with parcels. Bill Greenwell

This rock remembers curvature of clay That cradled him beneath a fragrant pine. The sunset dipped her paintbrush in the bay And tinted rivers red with evening wine.   The centuries have smoothed his granite face And rounded razored edges of his tongue. Upheaved, he wakes within a mob’s embrace — Marauders jeer that traitors must be hung.