In Competition No. 2419 you were invited to supply a poem in free verse beginning ‘I think continually of …’
‘…those who were truly great’ completes the first line of a much anthologised poem by Stephen Spender. Free verse has a tendency to slip into something like very rough blank verse, and some of you fell into this trap. Of all the things continually thought about by you I was especially tickled by Paul Griffin’s ‘the Saturday Collectors,/ Mrs Broadworthy, Mr Brisk, and the sisters Payne,/ Always the same four’. The prizewinners, printed below, take £25, and I have no hesitation in awarding the bonus fiver to Noel Petty.
I think continually of sex.
Every six minutes, they say,
the clever ones who know such things,
or is it perhaps six seconds? I forget.
I try sometimes to test this theory,
creeping up on myself
to catch me unawares,
but always I see me coming
and gaze at the sky
whistling, in a pantomime of innocence.
But I am not fooled,
and I have warned me
that if I catch me at it
it will be bread and water
for a month.
Noel Petty
I think continually of those in supporting roles:
of Elisha Cook Junior who never, never survived,
mortally cursed by his sad baby’s eyes;
of Jack Elam’s putrid stubble and alcoholic squint;
of gaunt Charles McGraw, the hatchet face of hatchet faces;
of Jack Lambert’s savage pug-ugliness modelled on rotting cheese;
of Marie Windsor’s greedy lips and gothic lashes;
of the tough dikey glamour of Lizabeth Scott.
And below them the nameless, the mute and the blurred;
the dress extras smoking and miming at the next table
in the smoky déco night club where the hero makes his play;
the low-level heavies too punkish to be shot by a star;
the women in MGM make-up with nothing to say;
the waiters and cabbies and cops at the foot of the cast list;
the unknowns and passers-by blind to the unfolding drama
or just quietly, eternally, climbing the wall.
Basil Ransome-Davies
I think continually of
how I will, very shortly, write a novel
that will get me the Nobel prize
(only first,
I have one or two important things
to finish off
(which I will start on
as soon as I have cleared my desk
(which I will get busy on tomorrow
(or at least, I would
if I didn’t have three meetings and a dental appointment
(but anyway,
believe me,
the novel is on its way
(if only I can get out of these brackets)))))).
Michael Swan
I think continually of those who are obscenely fat.
Not the coyly pot-bellied, the flaunters of twee spare tyres,
But those truly, morbidly obese, the blatant swells,
Earth mocking their stolid progress, gravity itself defying them,
Large, copious, pound-foolish, strangers to penny-pinching.
Contrast myself: spare, ribbed, stingily articulate,
Spurner of belt and braces, matchstick caricature, ordained
To sense the world’s shocks through dry, spiny buttocks;
Envious of the rubicund, flatulent, garrulous:
Staid, stern, rancid and hollow-eyed — a mark to miss.
No scrimping or scrounging there, among the adipose:
Though the grave gape, they’ll go out noisily,
Their passing a rich, contented, slow deflation
Born of a ribald raspberry. Over the tall barrows
Their laughter gurgles, while I count my spoons.
Martin Woodhead
I think continually of special offers
at the supermarket, three for the price of two
at the bookshop, money-off coupons and reward points.
I think of days when I could find my glasses quickly.
I think of days when I didn’t need glasses.
I think continually of my bladder’s needs,
my ungainly teeth, my lack of purposeful effort.
I think of some event I can’t remember.
Is it better to just not think?
I think of possessing a true gift with words,
of sleeping contented and travelling light;
of everything I hoped but failed to be.
I think continually of a loved one dead,
the most utterly selfish of thoughts.
I think of my future non-being
when I used to think continually of sex.
G.M. Davis
I think continually of this and that
And why and how and when and which:
Which tie to wear?
When to pump the tyres?
How came that scratch?
Why am I here?
Which route to choose.
When to start out.
How much the cost?
Why go at all?
Which cause to fight.
When to speak out.
How far to go.
Why get involved?
And, since Time flies, is it quite just
That pigs — and dogs and Man — cannot?
L.E. Betts
No. 2422: Diabolical
You are invited to write a poem (maximum 16 lines) or a piece of prose (maximum 150 words) entitled ‘Dinner with the Devil’. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2422’ by 8 December.
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