Spectator competition winners: in dispraise of Valentine’s Day

The invitation to submit poems in dispraise of Valentine’s Day certainly struck a chord, drawing a large and heartfelt entry that captured the ghastliness well: overpriced dinners, sad, single-stemmed roses, chocolate genitalia, nasty cards – or no cards at all… Valentine’s Day is said by some to have its roots in the Roman pagan festival of Lupercalia. But one scholar has proposed the theory that it was Chaucer who first designated 14 February as a day of love in his poem ‘The Parlement of Foules’, and I wondered if any of you would come up with a Chaucerian pastiche (you didn’t). A consolatory handshake to Fiona Pitt-Kethley, Susan McLean, Hamish Wilson, Robert Schechter and Mike Morrison, who were unlucky losers. The winners, printed below, pocket £25.

Frank Upton A curse upon thee, Valentine — Thou saint of woe and strife, Who gave me leisure to repine Of what I loved but was not mine — Who stole away my life.

I raise a wall of years, months, hours, As strong as prison stone, That shields me from your hearts and flowers Your lovers’ vows and perfumed bowers. I am a rock, alone.

Blank diary page shows ‘Feb Fourteen’, A date so grimly gay. That card from bold Miss Everdene I would that I had never seen! A curse upon this day!

Chris O’Carroll For the mated or unmated, 14 February’s grim. Roman priest decapitated? Bloody perfect eponym.

In a box shaped like no heart That ever beat in any breast, The calories are off the chart At stern tradition’s sweet behest.

For those with floral allergies, The posies are a perfect pain, And cognitive abilities Can dwindle from too much champagne.

The theme, allegedly, is love, About which everyone’s confused. When red push comes to satin shove, A heart of flesh is not amused.

Bill Greenwell Each day I place you on a plinth, But why must I, with fervent gush, Praise this one, full of shallow synth, And chocolate hearts, and velvet plush, To kow-tow to the unseen Shogun That orders orgies of this pap, That sells each vacuitic slogan, Each load of recrudescent crap? Are lovers now so Gadarene That they must drown in scented wax, All wrapped in polyethylene, To bring on bogus ‘heart’ attacks?

My dear, of course I’ll genuflect At this pink, nihilistic shrine — Such sentiments we’ll each confect: But let them, please, be anodyne.

G.M. Davis I sent my love a Valentine. It made me feel so small To see she’d posted it online, For mockery by all,

A crushing insult. Why would not A picture of a horse Make any normal woman hot For sexual intercourse?

My heartfelt, subtle message was That I’m not gelded or Unmanly, but as virile as The stallion in St Mawr.

A curse on Valentines. They’re ways To breed discord and schism. What happened to romance these days? I blame feminism.

Philip Roe They that lack power to lie for want of words Can purchase cards depicting shrimp-pink hearts And turtle doves and lovesick calling birds, Imagined flowers and Cupid’s bow and darts. Within these cards are verses short and trite Festooned with curled motifs below, above, In which ill-paid and cynic poets write Familiar phrases of eternal love. These cards, each year around the start of Lent, With roses, forced to blossom out of season, And chocolates that rot your teeth, are sent In numbers astronomic beyond reason. The lonely loveless send these things. And why? To lie to those with whom they hope to lie.

Frank McDonald The day that’s been reserved for me Has caused me much anxiety. It eulogises lechery With never a word of piety. I’m not against philanthropy; Love I have offered readily But in a spirit neighbourly Not coated in cupidity. From heaven’s heights I fail to see How I am linked romantically With sentiments that love is free And letters written lustily. So be it known I disagree With notes on promiscuity. This message comes, most vexedly, From Valentine, yours piously.

Your next challenge is to submit a short story in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction set in the corridors of power (150 words maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 27 February.