In Competition No 2559 you were invited to complete a poem starting ‘Come, friendly bombs, and fall on …!’ with the target of your choice.
In a huge entry, Gordon Brown and his crew were by far the most popular destination for your WMDs (you may as well pack your bags now, mate). Other favourite targets of the Spectator-reading and competition-entering community were George Bush and his gang, yoof (especially its clothes), bad smells, graffiti, the Celtic fringe, Geordieland, Disneyland, The Archers, Crewe, Worcester, Kent, Heathrow, Brighton, Bath, Windsor and Eton, people who write nasty things about Slough, Tesco, plastic bags, Men (from a man) and Me (from two women). Commendations to Basil Ransome-Davies (nasty Nice), Peter Adorian (background noise) and Martin Parker (the Turner Prize and all its works). The winners printed below get £25 each while the extra fiver goes to Frank Mc Donald.
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on those
Who think that God wears human clothes,
And in their arrogance condemn
The masses who don’t pray like them.
Dear friendly bombs, annihilate
Religious leaders hard with hate,
And fools who think that God would care
What name we give a teddy bear.
But fall especially upon
All those who feel that they alone
Are instruments of godly love,
Who kill and maim, such love to prove.
Come, friendly bombs, and find a way
To fall upon their Sabbath Day,
For they will thus be heaven blessed
And we’ll enjoy their day of rest.
Frank McDonald
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Claire’s,
Monsoon, and Lush, and B&Q,
On Whittard’s, Argos, Mothercare,
On Orange, and on Phones4U,
On Clinton Cards, Top Shop, Top Man,
Ravel, and Warehouse, JJB,
On Past Times, Argos, Matalan,
On Primark, Game and HMV,
On Next, on Paperchase, QS,
On Jigsaw, Smiths, on Boots and Schuh,
On BHS and M&S,
On Quiz and Waterstone’s and Kew.
And when you’ve bombed all chain stores down,
When all their logos are un-inked,
Do let us know – is any town
In any way less indistinct?
Bill Greenwell
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on flies!
Their irksome buzzing stupefies
All sense, so hasten their demise
And pulverise the lot!
Their vile proboscises protrude
And, being creatures coarse and crude,
They spit saliva on our food
Along with heaven knows what!
Oh for a world with flies deceased!
They serve no purpose in the least
Except to pester man and beast
And give us endless grief.
Sweet missiles, spring one last surprise:
Rain down in mercy from the skies
And blast away these frightful flies
To bring us all relief!
Alan Millard
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on all
The cats that wail their coital call
In nightcat coteries hereabout.
Target them not by sight but clamour,
Rain down upon their katzenjammer
And wipe those caterwaulers out.
Fall on the dogs that daily meet
On local footpaths to excrete,
As if engaged in competition
For volume, placement, boot adherence.
Effect their sudden disappearance;
Descend and send them to perdition.
Why are such creatures on the loose?
Are those in charge of them obtuse?
Come, friendly bombs, fall as a bonus
On all those laissez-faire pet-owners.
Ray Kelley
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Blair
(He’s not in power, but I don’t care)
Then let more friendly bombs rain down
On hapless, hopeless Gordon Brown.
And after that, a dozen more
For Jowell, Harman, Blears and Straw,
Make sure an extra large one falls
Upon the well-named Mister Balls.
Then let bombs (anti-personnel)
Get both the Milibands as well,
And then to Brussels send one on,
Just for the ghastly Mandelson.
The whole so-called New Labour crew
Richly deserve a bomb or two,
To let the others have their day.
They surely can’t be worse … can they?
Brian Murdoch
Come, friendly bombs, and ruthlessly
Demolish Washington DC,
Kill Bush and Rice and Cheney too,
After which, without more ado,
Flatten the Capitol, with all
Its crooked politicians, fall
Like thunder on Grant’s tomb, a blot
On any landscape, and do not
Forget the Pentagon, a nest
Of vipers, which should be suppressed.
If you should think the foes I hate
Do not deserve this awful fate,
Look at Iraq, and after scan
The carnage in Afghanistan,
Then note the dragon’s teeth they sow
With torture at Guantanamo.
Francis Mullen
No 2562: M and M
You are invited to write a soliloquy in verse or prose by someone prone to malapropisms or misquotations, or a dialogue between two such people. Maximum 16 lines or 150 words. Entries to ‘Competition 2562’ by September 11 or email jamesy@greenbee.net (no attachments, please).
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