In Competition 2644 you were invited to submit the views of an inanimate object, in verse, on its owner/s.
Highlights of a large and entertaining entry included Gillian Ewing’s outraged iron — ‘She doesn’t use me half enough,/ But when she does she treats me rough…’ — and Mary Holtby’s unjustly accused oven, in fine indignant voice: ‘Victim of the botched assault,/ Soon I learn it’s all my fault, Great to hear a hopeless sloven/ Blame her inoffensive oven…’ There were harsh words, too, from Mike Morrison’s bicycle: ‘The Cornish-pasty headpiece/ Black Spandex bondage kecks/ That total tosser T-shirt/ And aviator specs…’
Congratulations, one and all. The winners, printed below, get £25 each, except Alan Millard, who gets £30.
You’re clearly narcissistic. You’re the soul of
vanity.
You gaze at me for hours but it’s never me you see.
You feign a sickly smile and you stroke your
stubbly chin,
And marvel at your profile when you’ve pulled
your stomach in.
You see yourself as elegant, a star of stage and
screen
Whose face would grace the pages of a glossy
magazine.
You pose like some Apollo with a supercilious air
And manufacture faces while you rearrange your
hair.
Blind to every aberrance and abnormality,
You idolise a fantasy that only you can see.
Your hair is white, your teeth are brown, your
skin is granite-grey,
You’re nothing but a sad old crock who’s long
since had his day,
And yet the wreck before your eyes you doggedly
reject
And choose to see what you select and not what I
reflect.
But knowing that there’s none so blind as those
who cannot see,
Perhaps you’re wise to close your eyes to what’s
confronting me.
Alan Millard
Time was, your hands were on me night and day.
(The thrill along my spine!) Of course I flipped
for you, from A to Z and back to A,
not once suspecting our romantic script
was doomed (and how), you fickle, shallow fool.
You’ve traded everything you shared with me —
defining moments, leisurely, old school —
for quickies with your laptop, your PC,
your iPhone, iPad, iDon’t-Give-a-Damn:
amid their breathless litany of news,
blogs, tweets, directions, recipes, and spam,
they will, at any moment that you choose,
look up a word (or dozens!) in a flash.
Well, here’s a definition I find merry:
Comeuppance (noun): when all your gadgets crash,
and you crawl back to me — your dictionary.
Melissa Balmain
You show me to your weather eye
And hold me captive to your ear,
Obsessive as an angry fly
Trapped in a tiny bathysphere:
Night or day, when not asleep,
You fix me like a hypnotist,
Unable to resist a peep
At me, recumbent on your wrist.
I have no hands, which irritates
Your inner philistine. You’re sick
That I am digital — pet hates
That show me, oddly, how you tick.
Early, late, you grip your lips,
And I’m your butt. I take your blame.
And yet you bought me, cheap as chips,
Since miser is your middle name.
Bill Greenwell
Vain teenager, you cast a morning glance
into my honest face, afraid to find
a blemish on your teenage countenance.
You check each worried spot and each unkind
excess of this or that, then show your teeth
as though you sought to make a meal of me.
But sadly you can never see beneath
that surface handsomeness. One day you’ll be
greyer, older, wrinkled as a roof,
and I will have to tell you. God knows how
your pride will take the details of the proof;
I sense that you and I will have a row.
Ah, here you come to check your evening state,
a twinkle in your eye. You have a date.
Frank McDonald
As once to kings their jesters were
allowed to speak the truth and live,
a humble piece of furniture
like me has also truth to give.
When you’re in costume for the street,
your mirror may approve the view,
but recollect the toilet seat:
I see the underside of you.
The dishes only know your hands,
the television serves your eye,
but I’m the one who understands
that fundamental things apply.
Your friends who only see your face
believe that what it says is true.
I’ve knowledge of a deeper place:
I see the underside of you.
Gail White
Your father used me better, I must say —
no, better’s harsh — with more regard, more care.
I felt he leant on me in every way:
I had the weight of all he wrote to bear.
Yes, yes, I know — who pens a letter now,
who keeps a diary, even writes a cheque?
I’m glad at least you didn’t turn to bow
before some chipboard altar to high tech.
The blotter had to go, I do concede;
but why the savage sanding of my top?
My lifetime’s scars of service did not need
erasing with that demon barber’s crop.
Ah, well, I grant the varnish makes me look
less faded now, recalls my youthful self.
With no place, though, for paper, pen and book,
you’ve made me just a cyber storage shelf.
W.J. Webster
No. 2647: Teen spirit
In the Eighties we had the Sloane Ranger and the Young Fogey; in the Noughties, the Chav. You are invited to invent new social types for the current decade (150 words maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 12 May.
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