In Competition 2495 you were invited to submit a poem establishing the principles of a new religion. This competition was inspired by Larkin’s ‘Water’:
My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench…
A lot of entries were slightly gloomy satire recommending the twin creeds of selfishness and shopping. Commendations to Barbara Smoker and G.M. Davis, and to Moyra Blyth for her paean to the carrot, but the winning poems are printed below. The prizewinners each receive £30, and the bonus fiver goes to D.A. Prince.
My faithful ones, our principles must be
Both carbon-neutral and pure, GM-free.
No living creature should be harmed (though germs
May be exempted, as any gastric worms).
As sin is relative and incidental
We are, in all, entirely non-judgmental.
No early services — just send a text
To get a blessing. No one need feel vexed
Or guilty for their Sunday morning lie-in:
Our Matins have a mobile network tie-in.
Email your prayers — see website for
location.
Religion’s all about communication.
One mouse-click and you’re counted in — no
need
To join in person (an outdated creed).
Our faith is non-offensive, savvy, clever:
A god with just one name — The Great
Whatever.
D.A. Prince
The new revealed religion of our state
I do unleash in groomed and solemn verse.
A simple code: the text, read in reverse,
Gives Dog as God. In England, Dog is
great —
We know instinctively what is divine,
Hallow all holy hounds. Now let us formalise
All acts of worship that we can devise,
And with our Dogs in sacred union whine,
Lift up your legs! Sniff bottoms when you
greet,
Drive forth the dark satanic cat,
Then lie close to the fireside on the mat,
But offer sacrifice of butcher’s meat.
Let there be walkies, yea, e’en in the rain,
That we on pious paws may join the Pack,
And if Dog will, then some day as a Jack
Russell or Labrador be born again.
Brian Murdoch
‘Love one another’
Was all very well
But loving my brother
Was a quick way to hell.
So practise indifference
Look after yourself
To hell with the neighbours
Go all out for wealth.
Be rich and alone, it’s OK
When you are both God and man
And bishop, and pastor, and clergy
All rolled into one, the whole clan.
I write my own law, and the dogma
Is whatever I want it to be:
I worship the thing that I love most
Myself. Moi. The God-head. That’s me.
William Danes-Volkov
Goodly Google shepherds us, even as we
sleep
And our local server kindly watch does keep,
Guides us on the highway, fights the vice of
spam,
And grants us daily input, with the help of
RAM.
Microsoft provides resources for our work
and play,
Offers systems, help and tools updated every
day,
Opens Windows on the world and teaches us
his Word,
Then gives us audio programmes so that the
voice is heard.
Thus, with my friendly helpline to guide and
comfort me
And knowledge that all shall be saved at the
touch of a key,
And that one touch will take me home when
in my hour of need,
Excel is my ambition; a record all may read!
Yet if my error should produce the grim blue
screen of death
And pressing ‘control, alt, delete’ grants me
no second breath,
The backup system gives me faith, as I am
borne aloft,
That I’ll be greeted by the pearly Gates of
Microsoft.
Shirley Curran
Myself when young, with obstinate
persistence
Puzzling out the reasons for existence,
Deduced with other shrewd hypotheses
That wind was made by waving of the trees.
In time I learnt that trees too cause the rain.
I furthermore worked out with my small brain
Apart from their great influence on the
weather
It’s trees that hold the earth and air together.
Impressed by their great beauty and nobility,
As well as their extraordinary utility,
When challenged to what gods I bend my
knees
I said I was a worshipper of trees.
Great numbers of disciples now surround me;
Their vigour and devotion still astound me
And now with humble hearts and eyes that
dazzle
We pray to the world ash tree Yggdrasil.
Hugh Munro
No. 2498: Psychobabble
You are invited to submit a speech (150 words maximum) by one of our newly ‘emotionally literate’ politicians unveiling a piece of legislation. Please incorporate the following words: ‘dysfunctional’, ‘narrative’, ‘empower’, ‘co-dependent’, ‘holistic’, ‘self-actualisation’, ‘closure’. Entries to ‘Competition 2498’ by 7 June or email to lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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