Come, friendly bombs

In Competition No. 2784 you were invited to  rewrite John Betjeman’s poem ‘Slough’, substituting the target of your choice.

The poet Ian McMillan sprang to Slough’s defence in 2005 with ‘Slough Re-visited’, an antidote to Betjeman’s jaundiced take on the town: ‘Come friendly words and splash on Slough!/ Celebrate it, here and now/ Describe it with a gasp, a “wow!”/ Of Sweet Berkshire breath’. But according to Betjeman’s daughter, Candida Lycett-Green, her father regretted having written the 1937 poem, a fact acknowledged by Frank Osen and several others besides. Mr Osen takes £30; the rest £25.

Although he lived to disavow
His wish that bombs might fall on Slough,
Soon bombs were raining, anyhow,
From Hull to Henley.
 
Would Betjeman have wanted moms
In Grozny, Vukovar or Homs
To read his plea for dropping bombs,
Albeit friendly?
 
No, he was more for conservation.
See how his statue, in elation,
Regards St Pancras’ preservation,
Pleased at its sprawling.
 
He wears a sharp, disarming air
While goggling at the rooftop, where
He seems relieved to see that there
Is nothing falling.
Frank Osen
 
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Brussels.
It stinks of money, chips and mussels
And everyone is into hustles
And parley voo.
 
Your MEP is sleek and fat
As is your venal Eurocrat,
Both avaricious as a rat.
As cunning, too.
 
Their avatar, Jean-Claude Van Damme,
An outsize slice of Belgian ham
Expressive as a traffic jam,
Does martial arts.
 
Let all such creatures be pell-mell
Annihilated, sent to hell,
And bomb that pissing boy as well,
But spare the tarts.
G.M. Davis
 
Come, friendly bombs, fall on The Lords,
Those past-their-sale-date ermined hordes
That our Exchequer ill affords:
It makes no sense.
 
Think donors, earls and party hacks
Who for decades just watched their backs,
And flipped their houses, saving tax
At our expense.
 
Precision bombing should ensure
Avoidance of the House next door:
Don’t worry, though, if thirty score
Should come to grief:
 
For MPs may (look on the Web)
Take cash for questions, call you ‘p**b’,
And even do I’m a Celeb.