The Oldie ''Room on Top'' competition results
Many congratulations to Annie for a wonderfully well-deserved win, and also to new member Alison.
Next comp (see new thread) is for a poem entitled: ‘Limit: Two Tons’.
Jayne
The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro
In Competition no 198 you were invited to write a poem called ‘Room on Top’. The phrase comes from buses, though many of you adapted it to something like John Braine’s idea in his novel Room at the Top of 1957, when he was an angry young man. Commiserations to the competitors not printed here, but each that is wins £25, with the bonus prize of a roomy Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Ann Drysdale for a witty and outstanding poem.
When I was young, I thought my boobs were far
from perfect, so I coaxed them to the norm
with ends of a baguette, stuffed in a bra
that revelled in the name of Maidenform.
As time went by, they ceased to seem inferior;
they grew, they pulled, they firmed and filled and fed.
They ticked the box in each of the criteria
for boobs, without resort to bits of bread.
And then the lump, the panic and the knife.
The simple common sense of giving up
a pound or so of flesh to keep a life.
A broken jug swapped for an empty cup.
So once again I turn to kitchen gimmicks
to counteract a unilateral sag.
A miracle of silicone that mimics
a chicken fillet in a plastic bag.
Ann Drysdale
An age ago when dreams stretched far ahead
And every corner of the world held fun;
An age ago when ageing held no dread
We had the power to voyage to the sun.
We climbed to glimpse the globe with eagle eyes;
In highest branches we were little kings;
We saw the world through rapture and surprise;
To reach the sky we had no need of wings.
Journeys from school were noisy happiness
As freedom waved from fields beyond our bus.
It seemed those hours of youth were limitless;
Pleasure had built her temples just for us.
With room on top we journeyed through delight,
Alive with lusty health and innocence.
Now, seated downstairs, we move towards our night
With recollections for our recompense.
Frank McDonald
Where once my hair was thick and strong
The glory of my head
As years have passed, I note each day
It’s thin and lank instead.
Where once my mouth was full of teeth,
Even, straight and white,
The few remaining are like pegs
And the rest come out at night.
My brain was bursting with ideas
And much new fruit they bore.
Now I can’t think of anything,
And it’s all been done before.
But the place where there’s most room on top
As far as I can see
Is where the holes appear each day
In my once full memory.
Katie Mallett
There’s not much room these days. The brain seems full
of ancient memories. Shoe-horning in
some practical necessity seems hard,
swamped by the constant pictures coming back.
Children standing on the running board
of some old car. You holding a baby
under an apple tree. All gone. But still
one needs to think and read, try to make sense
of money flung about on massive scale
while homeless people in their sleeping bags
huddle in the rain in shop doorways.
Refugees find no place at the inn.
There are no stables. No hay
for new-born child, no free boarding.
But in the board-room coffee circulates
with cut-throat smiles between men at the top.
Alison Prince
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