[John Whitworth]

Competition
Saturday, 21st May 2011

Lucy Vickery presents this week's Competition

In Competition No. 2696 you were invited to submit a dialogue in verse between two body parts, composed on the occasion of a hangover.
Kingsley Amis described the opening of Kafka’s Metamorphosis as the best literary representation of a hangover, though many might argue that the crown belongs to Amis himself for his hilarious account of Jim Dixon’s self-inflicted wretchedness. My favourite is Ogden Nash’s opening to ‘They Won’t Believe, on New Year’s Eve, That New Year’s Day Will Come What May’: ‘How do I feel today? I feel as unfit as an unfiddle,/ And it is the result of a certain turbulence in the mind and an uncertain burbulence in the middle.’
Your evocations struck a chord, too — especially W.J. Webster’s, which earns him the bonus fiver. His fellow winners, printed below, get £30 each.

‘Oh, seat of all wisdom, how do you explain
That time after time you groan, “Never again!”?
Why won’t you refrain from the grape and the grain
When all they deliver is nausea and pain?’
‘What liverish spite! Your words make it plain
That production of bile is your natural domain.
It grieves me to hear lower orders complain
And show scant respect for their master, the brain.’
‘Master! Disaster! You’re more brother Cain,
Destroying my tissues with vile toxic rain.
My regenerative skills will all be in vain
If you don’t heed this warning and learn to abstain.’
‘Such bilious effusions I treat with disdain —
If you weren’t mindless already I’d call them insane.
But once my head clears, I know I’ll regain
The power to converse on a far higher plane.’
W.J. Webster

I’m furred and feeble. Feel as if
I’m made of ash or ember.
And I am throbbing, cold and stiff:
But why? I don’t remember.
It feels as if a stream of acid
Turned me rank and rotten.
And I’m in pain where often placid,
But why? I have forgotten.
Perhaps I tasted sour gunge
As from a sewage tank?
Possibly. But I’m a sponge,
And yesterday’s gone blank.
I’m grey and green, where formerly,
My buds were in the pink.
Aha, dear friend: well, normally,
This means we need a drink.
Bill Greenwell

A knotty problem this one, but a problem we can share,
A tough conundrum simply solved by working as a pair.
Unlikely when you fiddle so and fumble like a fool,
You’re always shilly-shallying. Chill out! Calm down! Keep cool!
I’m shaking not from fear alone, but anger from last night
When, rushing like an idiot, you tugged the lace too tight.
It’s easy done, and easy too for you to scorn and scoff
When you’re the one who chickened out and yanked the damned shoe off.’
It’s pointless arguing the toss, let’s try to work as one.
He’s still half-pissed. It’s up to us to get the knot undone.
It won’t unpick itself, it’s true, so let’s not pick a row,
We’ll knuckle down, untie the knot and solve the problem now!
But tell me how! By feel alone? By tugging at the ties,
All thumbs and fingers in the dark? We can’t. We need his eyes.
Good point. We have a problem here which isn’t worth pursuing
When you, his left hand, cannot see what I, his right, am doing.
Alan Millard

‘Bladder to eyelids: are you fit for use?
Assistance needed. Do you read me? Over.’

‘I’ve tried one eye. It managed to produce
An impact like a close-up supernova.’

‘Well, could you have another shot? Like, now?
I’m bloated and I really need to go.’

‘You’ll have to manage by yourself somehow.
I won’t be firing for an hour or so.’

‘I need the eyes to find out where it is.
I can’t go groping round — it just won’t do.’

‘You must have overdosed on gin and fizz.
D’you really need a map to find the loo?’

‘We’re not at home; we’re somewhere not quite
right.
It always ends like this on fizz and gin.’

‘For you I’ll try; I’ll brave the blinding light.
A chap does need to know whose bed he’s in.’
Noel Petty

Says the Head to the Mouth, you drink too much,
You never know when to stop,
Then you talk too much, for you’re out of touch,
Last night you were over the top.

But the Mouth replies, with an impish grin,
It’s you who are never sated,
For you start to reel and enjoy the feel,
Then deny you’re intoxicated.

You relish the taste, the Head responds
And now you’ve become addicted,
But every time the pain is mine
For it’s I who am sore afflicted.

Says the Mouth to the Head, as it laughs out loud,
You’re a fine one to complain,
It’s all your fault, you should call a halt,
For you’re the one with the brain.
Tim Raikes