In Competition No. 3234, you were invited to submit either a poem or a short story entitled ‘Covid’s metamorphoses’.
Thanks are due to Frank Upton, who suggested this tremendous and timely challenge. It attracted a pleasingly large and diverse entry (overwhelmingly made up of verse rather than prose), in which the limerick was well represented. Here is an example from Jerome Betts:
A virus with spikes like a mine Whose effects can be no less malign Has a trick that’s worth noting As it changes its coating To defeat each fresh vaccine design.
Other highlights included a riff, from R.M. Goddard, on ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials, Martin Parker’s twist on Noël Coward’s ‘Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans’ and Yeatsian echoes courtesy of Max Ross.
The winning entries are printed below and earn their authors £25 each.
The virus dealt me an Olympian blow, Left me like Io — ravished from on high, So reeling, so brain-fogged, I didn’t know Whether I was a quadruped or bi. The hands of Heaven seized me like a pawn, A prop, a toy of trivial concern. They choked my nights and darkened every dawn. They taught me I had new pain yet to learn. Callisto-like I growled and mourned and clawed, Acting out loss-of-language desolation. For one who has felt cast off by a god, A constellation’s little consolation. The hits keep coming when you catch the eye Of deities. Revenge and appetite Tell you their will. You dare not ask them why, Nor try to tell them what you think is right. Chris O’Carroll
They fuck us up, the Covid strains, and screw us proper when they do. Mutating madly, changing lanes, they spread like crazy, then renew. Outrageous in their global span, as hydras sprouting endless heads, they hand on misery to man, mad monsters bouncing on our beds. We try to screw them up in turn, contrive our vaccines; off, begone! But merrily they keep transforming, Delta begets Omicron. Adapting far too fast to change, they rush like loo rolls off a shelf. Get well beyond infection range, and don’t catch any germs yourself. Janine Beacham
Begins, an egg; becomes a sprat; develops wings of airy gauze; abruptly, adds a pound of fat, an embryonic rat, with paws that dabble in the drooling pools where curious viruses abound — observes their tips and tricks and tools, until, chameleon-like, it’s found a way to ape a weird disease; grows hair, grows fur; has noxious breath; keeps crews of parasites and fleas, the better to dispense the Death: at last invisible, it shrinks and travels round by stink or smell, breeding in basins, bowls and sinks — as good a tale as experts tell. Bill Greenwell
The endless metamorphosis of Covid, A nasty, vicious, ever-changing bug, Has left us feeling anything but smug, And makes us think of Kafka more than Ovid. We’ve tried to keep the horrid thing at bay With vaccines, social distancing and masks, But still, the question everybody asks Is: Should we fear a mass extinction day? For some new variant, some foul mutation, Some dirty trick it’s hiding up its sleeve, Could wipe us out, the scientists believe. Farewell, Mankind! So we, in trepidation, Await, blaspheming or with piety, The dreaded Omega variety. Brian Allgar
Double, double, toil and trouble, Render all your hopes to rubble: Entrails of infected bat, Hell-broth in a viral vat. Cast a spell for each mutation, Circulate through every nation Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Stir the brew and let it swelter. Add a variant of concern, Stoke the fire and watch it burn, When the potency is gone Spike the gruel with Omicron. Yet our mischief is not done, Our web of evil will be spun Within our cauldron, hour by hour, The changing face of Covid’s power. Sylvia Fairley
Arising in the East it came The bearer of the virus crown As fearsome as the Mongol name Before whose power the world bowed down. And with each pitiless advance It changed and changed again its name, Each variant another chance To be both different and the same. With such Protean skills it dodged The fate that smallpox had to face And seemed interminably lodged Pandemic in the human race. But now a form not seen before, Both quick to come and soon to go, Has lost its threat as roaring maw And dwindled to a little o. W.J. Webster
No. 3237: single-minded
You are invited to submit a piece of prose, in the genre of your choice but using only monosyllables. Please email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 16 February.
Comments