For Competition 3397 you were invited to recast the ‘Hokey-Cokey’ in the style of a poet of your choice.
An appreciative nod to Tracy Davidson’s William McGonagall: ‘And the whole body should feel the vibration/ As your waggling appendage commits oscillation.’ High fives also go to David Blakey, Max Gutmann, J.S. White, Peter Smalley, Tom Adam, Bob Newman and Elizabeth Kay. The prizes go to those below.
They fuck you up, these outs and ins,
The more so if you’ve had a drink
And can’t tell low from upper limbs
Or right from left; it’s hell, you’ll think.
But then you’re told to shake about
And lose such focus as you’d got,
This dance is fun to watch, no doubt,
But for participants it’s not.That’s what it’s all about, you’re told.
Embarrassed at your drunken flail,
You pick your specs up, feeling old,
And hobble home, an epic fail.Adrian Fry/Philip Larkin
When I consider, though my light is spent,
The sounds of merrymaking echoing,
I hear the dancers gather in a ring,
’Tis said herewith that this is their intent:
To thrust one arm first in, then out, and shake it
Then, turning, guide the other in and out,
E’er now each limb is shaken all about,
I fondly ask them why they undertake it,
In such a way can God be glorified?
’Tis not what it is all about, I fear;
Betimes, whole body in, they sound more frantic.
Yet God has bless’d me, though of light deny’d,
And spared me one more heavy yoak to bear,
I cannot see the dancers’ foolish antics.Sylvia Fairley/John Milton
It’s no go my left leg in, nor yet my left leg out
For its dancing skills are minimal and, beyond all possible doubt,
The same is true of my right leg too. And I’ve better things to do
Than shake alternate limbs about with God only knows quite who.
It all looks too frenetic and it doesn’t look much like fun.
So I’ve no intention of joining in unless at the point of a gun.
I’ve a better chance of ending a dance with a jointly agreed seduction
If I shuffle and sway till she’s blown away by my gentle soft-lipped suction.
I came to enjoy the company, the bar and karaoke.
I came to find love. But what I got was the ludicrous hokey-cokey!
So, if you’re hoping I’ll grace the floor and join the okey-cokey-ing
With my legs stuck in, or maybe out, I’d say you’ve got to be jokey-ing.Martin Parker/Louis MacNeice
The lad who puts his left arm in
Knows how the dancing should begin,
And when he takes it out again
He does not make that move in vain.Right arm does as the left has done,
Then left and right legs one by one
Before the dancer shakes the whole
Container of his living soul.The outstretched arm and bended knee
Cannot gainsay mortality,
But movements of the leg and arm
Give mortal dust a moment’s charm.The lad who turns himself around
Will all too soon lie underground.
Now, nimble as a leaping trout,
He feels what life is all about.Chris O’Carroll/A.E. Housman
‘Shall we do the Hokey Cokey?’ said the turtle to the tern,
‘It’s a jolly little caper and an easy dance to learn,
One puts one’s flipper in and out and gives it, while it’s out,
A hearty shake and that, my friend, is what it’s all about.’
‘A jolly little caper it may be,’ the tern replied,
‘Yet something that you mentioned leaves me somewhat mystified.
I understand the ins and outs apart from one small thing,
How can I shake a flipper when I only have a wing?’
‘I take your point,’ the turtle said, ‘but having thought it through
Wing or flipper matters not since any part will do,
For as the dance continues we shall put more in and out
Thus you might choose to use your beak and I my sniffy snout.
And at the end both in and out our whole selves we shall throw
All shouting loudly “ra, ra, ra”, with faces all aglow,
As in and out and in again we frolic, frisk and prance,
So, will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?’Alan Millard/Lewis Carroll’
An arm flung out – at first the left –
And shaken – to and fro, yet deft –
Begins the profane dance,
Its name the hokey-cokey, though
The reason why I do not know –
A secrecy, perchance.There follows equally the right –
Revolving legs – O rare delight
To feel unholy – free!
Can this be all until the end –
That final hour when we ascend
To Immortality?Basil Ransome-Davies/Emily Dickinson
No. 3400: Tubular belles
You are invited to submit a poem to mark the 20th anniversary of YouTube. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 14 May.
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