G.M. Davis What made the tested proofer, The literal-detector, Less common than a loofah? Who rubbed out the corector?
Who were the mad deleters? Who wealded the erasers? Who fried the subbing praetors And gave their jobs to lasers?
I think were I a riter Id be a little bitter To have a laser blight a Peace of mine like litter.
Bring back the galley-reader, The trained-up text-emender, The keen-eyed typo-weeder, The pedant in his splendour.
Basil Ransome-Davies The shades of night are falling for the squaddie with the gun, The kind who formed the Thin Red Line or battled with the Hun, Who faced the Minenwerfer and the high explosive bomb And left his bloody entrails on the mudfields of the Somme.
The ranker fought the enemy from Khartoum to Cadiz. The kudos was the generals’; the sacrifice was his. Then when his mouth was dry with dust, back home or in the rear, He faced the surly taverner who wouldn’t serve him beer.
What future does he face now, as his role is paid off cheap — A jail of debt and loneliness, a horror-broken sleep? — While air-conditioned men watch screens, play keyboards with clean hands And launch their bloodless death machines to kill in distant lands.
The state that teaches men to kill has little left to give When troops stand down and no one asks who dies if England live. Smart algorithms make the globe a virtual combat zone; It’s still ‘that sickened earth of old’: no law except the Drone.
Brian Allgar A Headsman used to be a fine profession Before those namby-pambies wrecked the trade. The customer would make a last confession, Then, thwack! Another head to be displayed. A single stroke would bonce from body sunder; I never had a client who complained. But where did all those pikestaffs go, I wonder? Those baskets, often royally bestained? Although decapitation’s been abolished, And I’m considered obsolete, retired, I keep my chopping axes oiled and polished; You never know when they may be required.
Today, good news at last! I’m off to pack — I’ve heard that there’s an opening in Iraq.
D.A. Prince A postman shapes the pattern of each day, His steps define our frail community; He brings the real, the tactile, and the play Of published print and hand-writ ink, to me.
The last link in the paper chain, the means By which these postcards, letters grace our floor, along with books and newsy magazines; the whole wide world delivered through the door.
The virtual unseen world fades on a whim. The postman takes real weather in his stride. He tracks the deepest winter snows; for him No storm nor hail can leave him terrified.
A postman’s load grows lighter year by year, The work replaced by stuff prefixed with e-. His world is shrinking, fast; his end is near. Such passing is a sadder day for me.
Frank McDonald The Sunday bells appeal for folk to come And spend their morning listening to Good News But few arrive; the Lord has long been dumb. The priest performs his task to empty pews. As weary weeks become a weary year And saving souls for God is one long Lent He finds a wisp of faith in wine, or beer, And statues watch his sad predicament. He has no words to make the hearts of youth Opt for a life of penitence and prayer For he has seen the ugliness of truth And daily wears the vestments of despair. What fool would gladly enter this profession And conjure grace from words devoid of sense? No miracle can change the priest’s impression That everything he stands for is pretence.
Your next challenge is to imagine that a well-known figure from 20th-century history (alive or dead but please specify) was/is a secret poet and to submit a recently discovered example of their versifying. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 23 July.
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