In Competition No. 2413 you were invited to supply a poem such as might have been written by the Revd Spooner.
William Archibald Spooner, the myopic, albino warden of New College, was not, as I had always imagined, a Victorian figure: his wardenship was 1903–24 and he died in 1930. As an educationist he would have been shocked if he had overheard his fellow Oxonian Wystan Auden referring dismissively to the poets ‘Sheets and Kelley’ and even more aghast had he lived to witness a feminist theatre group touring Britain in the 1970s under the name Cunning Stunts. My own favourite among his reputed blunders is ‘The Lord is a shoving leopard.’
This competition must have been hard work. I have consequently been lenient in interpreting the term Spoonerism. The winners, printed below, get £30, and Virginia Price Evans has the bonus fiver.
The louse that I hooked at was tartan and spired —
No sabre-laving devices were there;
It had rolls in the hoof and the lyres were unfit,
The dots were perty and there was no chuffing in the stair.
No eats were shared and no bowels were toiling,
The tarpit was catty and the fugs all raided;
The lubbards were keening and the selves were shagging,
The wino was lorn and the fades were all shaded.
The loafer was sacking all cadding and push-ons,
The tapes were drawn, there were groans in the state;
The cables were tracked and the wishes undoshed,
And a tawny scrabby licked plums off a crate.
The mayor was kissing among the steeple I paid with,
They couldn’t mould honey, they’d no nogs to their claim;
So I fought them some brood and gave them sure fillings —
I’m a tuttering stalker, Sev Pruner’s my name.
Virginia Price Evans
In my nosy wee cook we shall fight a liar,
When it’s cold outside and roaring with pain.
A dinner-time party is fewer to be shun,
We shall gawk as a troop of friends again
With a wattle of bite or a fine wed Rhine.
Go help me sod, the honour is mine!
So let me sew you to your sheet
With a chair of palming twister sins
And a soul of ballad and ease to cheat;
It has always been my half-warmed fish
That you and these gritty pearls should meet,
As I know you’ll find they’re a deerless pish!
And ghastly we’ll lather and graze our lass
In praise of the dolly jays we have seen,
And then we’ll have the hags flung out
And drink a toast to our queer old dean.
Shirley Curran
The soap in my hole has eroded,
And nothing can now tease my ears.
Since my plaster man has exploded,
I have to confront my first weirs.
Hear me pour with emotional rain
As I’m chewing an everyday door.
I feel that I’m bruising my lane,
That flood freely blows from peach ore.
She fed me a whole lack of pies.
She left me so soaping and mad.
Is it true that one’s dove always lies?
Do fear dealings always go bad?
I’ve just tailed the fest. Desperately,
I sickle pie morrows in wine.
But alack and alas, Meaux is wee:
If you mopped tea — well, that would be fine.
Basil Ransome-Davies
‘Why don’t you goo the darden,
You useless bayalout?’
‘Wo nay, it’s raining Datsun cogs,
Can’t possibly go out.’
‘Just shift yourself, you fired old tool —
I really gate your huts;
Shove up your pickle, wig some deeds
And no more biffs and uts.
‘When will you jet a proper gob
Like formal nellows do?’
The husband combed his lowing flocks,
Intoning, ‘Yuts to new.’
‘Your life’s been one long magic tress,
What have you done with it?’
‘Sweet ugger ball, and furthermore,
I couldn’t share a kit.’
Mike Morrison
Ah, melancholy! How my kites are nursed,
And all my days you copulate with pairs,
Besetting me with many faking queers.
Those who despise me, I must stare their bears!
But hence! Let friends now, at my kidding, bum,
Show me how I should live, take passion’s fart,
Drive off this present sad and murky queen,
And leave me smarting piles to ease my heart.
Brian Murdoch
No. 2416: Special reduction
You are invited to reduce the life story of a famous person or fictional character to three limericks. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2416’ by 27 October.
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