Competition No. 2520: On the road
You are invited to submit a poem entitled ‘Meditation on the M25’ (maximum 16 lines). Entries to ‘Competition 2520’ by 8 November or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
In Competition 2517 you were invited to submit a nonsense poem with the first line ‘They went to see in a Sieve, they did…’, the opening to Edward Lear’s ‘The Jumblies’.
This was an opportunity to leave reason behind and to make merry with verbal inventiveness, incongruous juxtapositions and distorted spelling. One of appealing things about nonsense verse is that the surreal, topsy-turvy worlds conjured up have their own internal logic, and I especially liked entries that managed to get this across.
Commendations go to Josh Ekroy and Dorothy Pope, and thanks to Martin Parker, who, with one eye on future bonus fiver-winning opportunities, did away with some of his rival compers, casting them out to sea in the holey vessel and consigning them to a watery grave.
The winners, printed below, get £30 each, and W.J. Webster (who was spared by Mr Parker) gets £35.
They went to sea in a sieve, they did,
With never a moment’s doubt:
‘It’s better by far,’ they cried, ‘than a boat —
If water gets in we’ll still stay afloat
Because it’ll drain straight out.’
They fitted their oar (they’d only brought one)
And started to row, turn about,
But hard as they tried, the sieve just went round
With a gargling, gurgling, guggling sound,
Like a pig with a pea in its snout.
And though they still strove with might and with main
The tide took a turn and ran them aground
So they found themselves back where they’d started again,
Which proved, they declared, that the Earth must be round.
Oh, what greater adventure could life ever give
Than going to sea, as they did, in a sieve?
W.J. Webster
They went to sea in a sieve, they did,
But first they removed all the holes,
And in slices of Emmenthal cheese these were hid,
Which they put in some freshly made rolls.
Then they ate up the rolls and the holes and the cheese
While the sieve was still spinning along,
But the holes reappeared in their elbows and knees,
Where the whistling wind played a song.
The wind played a hornpipe (with tiddly-poms)
While the sieve skimmed along on the foam,
Then it played (‘cos it liked the Last Night of the Proms),
‘Tom Bowling’ and ‘No Place like Home’.
And still the sieve spun on the glittering main,
But the water got into their knees,
And into their elbows, with nowhere to drain,
But it drowned every one of their fleas.
Brian Murdoch
They went to sea in a sieve, they did —
A mellifluous trio of three,
The squirrel, the squab and the squirminous squid,
All happy as happy can be
When, out of the blue, a carbuncular whale
Burst up from the brine spouting seawater ale
And, flaunting its flippery-flappery tail,
Said, ‘Please may I join you for tea?’
So they feasted together on krill-crusted crabs
And snapper soup sipped from a spoon,
With slippery-kippery, salty kebabs
And ling from the Pongo lagoon;
Then spindle-spine weever and slithersome eel
With prickleback pickle on slices of seal
And, feeling ebullient after their meal,
They danced all the way to Dunoon.
Alan Millard
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
With a pedigree Rat for a Pet:
The waters were whiter than shaving cream
Though the waves were not soaking or wet,
And they bobbed on sob of the tide, they did,
While the Rat twirled ten inches of tail,
And they used two udders as rudders, they did,
And they hoisted a pinafore sail.
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
With a sack of marshmallow meringue:
They raised up a glorious head of steam
With the heat of the ballads they sang,
And they handled their oars like saws, they did,
With the Rat in gelatinous glee,
And they frisked him for whiskery rigging, they did,
As they sailed in their Sieve on the sea.
Bill Greenwell
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did —
The Scorpion and the Bee;
They planned a tour round the Côte d’Azur
And hoped to be home for tea.
Their Craft, though shiny, was cracky and tiny
And minimalist in its décor;
Adventure they’d craved, but (thoughtless) they’d braved
A Ship without a floor.
They widdershins span, round and round like a Fan,
Going nowhere and getting there fast;
They clung on in terror as they realised their error
Of not bringing Rudder or Mast.
A humungous Storm (not at all the norm
In the Med) pitched the Friends with a wail
Into seas all depraved, where they fought to be saved —
There’s a sting in the tail of the Tale!
Virginia Price Evans
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