Do your worst

In Competition No. 2797 you were invited to  think of the worst possible title for a poem and then write that poem.
 
Oh, for more space! This challenge brought in a large and excellent entry that fizzed with the spirit of McGonagall and McKittrick Ros.
 
I don’t have space to commend all I’d like to, but take a bow, Chris O’Carroll (‘I taste better than I smell’), Jerome Betts (‘From Verrucaria Maura to Parmelia Saxatilis’), Josh Ekroy (‘Ode on a Teenage Problem Child’), George Simmers (‘The Niceness of Jimmy Savile’), Graham King (‘I floss my nostrils daily’) and Adrian Fry (‘Your Oblong Face’). The winners take £25; W.J. Webster £30.

Rare the taste of moonbeams
Head thrown back and mouth agape,
The silver essence on my tongue,
Hands cupped to form Selene’s shape,
I gave the sleeping world her song.
And as the final plangent note
Flew from my lips’ encircling ‘Ah!’,
There streamed in down my funnelled throat
An argent draught of light lunar.
So sweet it was and yet so pure,
Like liquor from Pierian spring
Collected in a naiad’s ewer
To succour those inspired to sing.
Oh, joy! that I could ever savour
Moonlady’s gentle rain of kisses
Given as pagan wine and wafer —
In thanks for which my votive this is.
W.J. Webster

You can’t make an omelette with fish eggs
You can’t make a sow from a silk purse,
Not even an ear or a snout;
You can’t make a broth worth consuming
If too many cooks are about.
 
The dog that you should have left sleeping,
That mongrel with colic and scabies,
Woke up in a foul-minded temper
And bit you, so now you’ve got rabies.
 
Look hard in the mouth of a gift-horse;
Though some might consider it rude,
The Trojans omitted to do it
And ended up horribly chewed.
 
You can’t mess about with the cosmos;
It’s likely to mess you right back.
And you can’t make an omelette with fish eggs —
Their shells are too tiny to crack.
Brian Allgar
 
An Odd Ode upon Odoriferous, Odious, Old Odours
Sometimes I sniff a smell and think
This isn’t such an awful stink
For certain whiffs, in various ways,
Remind us of our childhood days.
An unguent’s reek on someone sick
Can call to mind my grandma’s Vicks
Which, e’er she took her nightly rest,
She’d rub in plenty on her chest.
Dry seaweed rotting on the rocks,
And outdoor privies, sweaty socks,
A cesspit’s stench, an armpit’s whiff,
Recall those pongs we used to sniff.
Old odours wafting on the breeze,
Arouse afresh those memories
Of all things smelly, foul and rank,
Remembered for the way they stank.
Alan Millard
 
Stalin’s Boyhood Dreams
Oft Josef wished upon a star
When he was very small.
He craved a land without a Tsar,
Equality for all.
 
No more would bosses make the law.
No more the secret police.
‘Twas wonderful what he foresaw,
An age of love and peace.
 
On visions of a better world
Young Josef dwelt for hours
Among sweet meadows that unfurled
In Spring their lovely flowers.
 
Yet when he heard his mother call,
By whom his heart was smitten,
The wee lad only paused to pull
The head off one more kitten.
Basil Ransome-Davies
 
The life-cycle of the frog
Amphibians can’t live upon the plains,
Our skin needs constant moisture every day.
This pond’s our home; we don’t move far away,
For fear we’ll lose our iridescent stains.
The pond’s well-stocked; no call for hunger pains,
I’ll crunch a water-boatman or a May-
Fly for my lunch, and then it’s off to play,
Or bask beneath the downpour when it rains,
Or hop about on water-lily leaves,
Or shelter under them from burning suns.
The reeds and rushes grow in mighty sheaves;
I swim among them, coming up for breath
Or for a snack … And so my story runs,
From egg to tadpole, then from frog to death.
Sylvia Smith
 
Discretion Is The Better Part Of Velcro
Be careful when in pairs or groups
That separating hooks and loops
Do not create a noisy rip —
For instance, were you on a ship
And unstripped Velcro, well, Good Lord,
There might be Person Overboard.
Where infants play or congregate,
The noise may also be too great —
The parents of these tiny sprogs
May loose upon you vicious dogs,
Rather than offering you ‘a look’
When peeling loop away from hook.
If on a night patrol, a clot
Will open Velcro, and be shot —
Burr-inspired, great invention,
But causes dangers best to mention.
Bill Greenwell

You are invited to reconstitute a well-known work of literature as a tweet, i.e., 140 characters including spaces. Up to ten tweets each. Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 29 May.