Vice verse

In Competition 2841 you were invited to paint an amusing portrait in verse of the vice and folly of humankind.

It was William Congreve who wrote that it is the business of a comic poet to paint the vice and follies of humankind, and I thought I would give you the opportunity to do just that. Gail White expresses doubt that ‘the vices of our flesh and minds’ can ‘be contained in sixteen lines’. But John O’Byrne boils it all down into a haiku: ‘My new credit card/ Means I can buy happiness./ Where did I go wrong?’ The extra fiver is Sylvia Fairley’s. Her fellow winners take £30.

Oh, the folly of man adds a frisson to life
That is otherwise empty and grey;
We can nurture, for spice, the occasional vice,
It will tend to keep boredom at bay.

When we’ve swallowed a skinful and binged
through the night,
Sung ‘Abba’ and danced in the buff,
And we wake up in pain with a thirst that’s insane,
Well, it’s clear we’re not drinking enough.

We’ll indulge to excess, for we have to confess
Humankind was designed to have fun — see
The oodles of grease that will make us obese —
Pile it on, it won’t show in a onesie.

If we feel like a smoke, though the doc says we’ll
croak,
Let us light up, inhale and forget,
While we share smutty sports and intimate thoughts
With our two million ‘friends’ on the net.
Sylvia Fairley
 
The only reason to exist,
One’s parents having tupped,
Is to continue what lies in you,
The power to corrupt.

The man is father to the child
Whatever poets spout:
Should goodness burgeon, play the surgeon —
Be quick and cut it out.

The murderer, the psychopath
Are pleasures to be sung —
We publicise their crimes and lies
And like to feed their tongue.

It’s no fun being nice and neat
Or a chinless, sinless wonder —
A curse on spring, we’d rather swing
To the grumble of some thunder.