Max Ross On First Looking into a Telescope ‘How beautiful the moon’, I heard folk say, ‘When captured in a telescopic view,’ But I, alas, was not among the few Who scanned the wonders of the Milky Way Until a tutor summoned me, one day, To share the lunar secrets that he knew And in a moment rumours all came true. Selene smiled, in garments ghostly grey.
Then felt I like John Keats when he first read Homeric tales in Chapman’s crisp translation, And everything astronomers had said Stood undisguised, above all expectation. And just as Keats was by his Muses led To pen his words, I too found inspiration.
Matt Quinn On First Looking into the Chilcot Report ‘Please know that I’ll be with you, come whatever. And though our love’s a secret, do not fear: if there are obstacles, I will endeavour to find a way to make them disappear.
‘Your body language rocks, and I’m distracted by manly fantasies in which we wrestle and roll upon the floor and then [REDACTED] Relationships like ours are truly special.
‘The things I’ll do with you should be illegal Some might even say they are a sin. But I would risk the world for you, my eagle. To hell with consequences, let’s dive in.
‘One day the world shall know of our affair, then none will doubt my love for you. — T. Blair.’
Brian Murdoch On First Looking into Article 50 of the Treaty of Rome Much have I travailed in the realms of guff And many reams of legalese have read, But now I want to cry out: ‘Hold, enough!’ Since I’ve seen what Article Fifty said. Administration-speak is tricky stuff, The letter always kills the spirit dead, And sorting it all out will be quite tough For whomsoever we may then be led. I quote: ‘Agreements are made in accord With Article Two-One-Eight-brackets-Three, (The Treaty on the Functions of EU).’ It’s not too clear who even says which word To tell some ‘qualified majority’ What’s what. Silence? And then just: ‘Toodle-oo?’
Douglas G. Brown On First Looking into Will Espy’s ‘Words to Rhyme With’ Much had I floundered as a hapless schmuck ’Midst Mount Parnassus’ bitter windswept clime; Until I had the providential luck To crack Will Espy’s epic book on rhyme.
His ‘Words to Rhyme With’ hit me like a bolt Of lightning from the upper troposphere, And changed me from a dilatory dolt To one for ever cured of rhyming fear.
With Espy, I spin webs of clever verses On Nimrods who pursue the sly Melursus And other beasts, of which I seldom think; Such as the carpophagous oxyrhynch.
I sing how engineers, in English tongue, Expound on car suspensions, underslung; And then I strike my harp and join the chorus Of men who mourn the vanished Stegosaurus.
Martin Parker On First Looking into My New Neighbour’s Recycling Bin In Prince’s Square we strive to nurse our social status and define our exclusivity with wine beyond the average drinker’s purse. But Number Nine’s new owner seems a man devoid of vinous dreams.
His bin reveals that all he’s bought are lager cans marked Strongest Export, the get-that-quickly-down-your-neck sort, the makes-a-man-a-legless-wreck sort.
So Prince’s Square has made a pledge to ostracise and to ignore this upstart who has moved next door, our thin end of a social wedge of folk too crass or, worse, too poor for magnums of Château Latour.
D.A. Prince On First Looking into Cryptic Crosswords Much have I struggled with those abstruse clues in which more practised solvers take delight. Across? — impenetrable. Down? — no sight or sense that won’t bewilder and bemuse. I know of cruciverbalists who choose to suffer these contortions day and night, untangling threads and relishing the fight. The fools, to hold such masochistic views!
But then an anagram unfolds, and fits neatly within the grid — a small success but just enough to spur me on to blitz a corner, then proceed by hunch and guess, to wrestle with the setter’s fiendish wits, and make this puzzle one almighty Yes!
Your next challenge is to submit a poem on the theme of summer in which the last two words of each line rhyme. Please email (wherever possible) entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 3 August.
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