Double time

In Competition No. 3328 you were invited to submit a poem on a topical theme in which the last two words of each line rhyme.

Some competitors were unsure whetherI meant that the last two words in each line should rhyme with each other, or with the next line. I meant the former, but given the ambiguous rubric either approach was acceptable.

My foggy thinking didn’t stop you from producing a cracking entry and, in an especially fiercely contested week, a prize of £25 is awarded to the winners below and honourable mentions go to Alan Millard, Max Ross and Brian Murdoch.

Statement done – ‘Who wins?’ begins;

‘Who gets an untoward reward?’

That pensioner’s a well-off toff,

This claimant does – with scorn – shirk work.

A scheme that now relaxes taxes

Will hardly solve the prices crisis.

The devil in the retail detail

Won’t see the weekly increase cease.

Reluctantly, we must just trust

To luck that some great mind behind

The scenes can really plot what

Might yet let us smile awhile.

But truly, who on earth can plan,

When what’s ahead’s a known unknown?

For fate makes only hindsight right –

The past is sure, the rest best guessed.

W.J. Webster

Last minute, here comes Cameroon, jejune,

Destroyer of the former Euro bureau,

In shadow, still that same cartoon buffoon

Who hides north-west of Truro, chiaroscuro –

Let Chipping Norton’s peer electioneer!

What pedigree! You’ll love his homestead shed!

(Though wasn’t he once thought to be austere, dear?)

Salute the undead blockhead thoroughbred!

He scoffs with glee when at the China diner,

And never slips – he wears a posh galosh:

What empty words! There’s no diviner mynah!

Oh gosh! Pay dosh to hear his wish-wash bosh!

What wisdom! His Confucian convolution

Will charm the world. They love a Lord abroad!

His style! He brings ablution, elocution!

So rave on, Dave, we cheer your fraud, applaud!

Bill Greenwell

Our right-leaning candidate ruthlessly, truthlessly

Claims his opponent is vicious, malicious;

Our leftist responds with hyperbole, verbally

Smearing his foe as flagitious, seditious.