I would say fuck if I were you. Larkin does. And so, it seems, did the Reverend Ian Paisley. When asked advice from an up and coming Ulster politician, the rev said avuncularly, 'Just say fuck occasionally'. Good advice for anyone in politics, I would have thought.

Stopping by Elsinore on a Gloomy Evening

What choice this is I think I know --
I'm racked with indecision though --
to face my fate however dire
or risk what terrors lie below?

For who indeed would not desire
to take their leave of fortune's ire,
but for the fear of going from
the frying pan into the fire?

My father's spirit must be glum
to see the way I'm playing dumb,
wandering round this crumbling heap,
while my uncle shags my mum.

Death beckons, peaceful, dark and deep,
but I have vows that I must keep
and three more acts before I sleep
and three more acts before I sleep.

Damn you, Marion, please don't submit that. How satisfying would it be compared to the Wilbur award? There are some of us whose self-esteem depends on this contest.

Maybe change "while" to "whilst" to humor the silly way they speak over there. But then, of course, don't send it in.

Marion, that is wonderful.

Susan

Now that's "laugh out loud"!

A classic,
Ralph

Who says 'whilst' over here? Nobody since about 1911. Maybe the Queen says it. oh, and Roger, you can't spell 'humour'.

Consider whilst
Thy nails thou fil's't
The words thou say'st
Should be the best
And not just rough
Old Yankee stough.

Does best rhyme with say'st?

Glad to hear that about whilst. I vaguely recall being told here, at the Sphere, that whilst was accepted Brit-speak, after I criticized its use in someone's poem.

Yup, I sez it duz.

Thanks, guys!

My question is about S3L4 - which sounds neither Shakespearean nor Frostean...What do ya'll think? Will it fly?

(Mr. Slater, wasn't it you yourself who said the Wilbur was almost as good as the fiver. You contradict yourself, my dear man.)

Damn, you all are good! What a hoot.


One Interrogative—
To be or not to—Be—
Revolves in my astounded Brain
Like Immortality—

To Die—may be to Sleep—
To sleep to Dream—perhaps—
With Poppies—Death may courtly come—
Or Manacles—and Whips—

And there’s the Hitch—the Fear
His Horses’ Heads—may go
To where I would not Be—if I
Should fly the Ills—I know—

And so—the Will—is numb—
And Conscience sealed—with Lead—
Because no Traveler ever leaves
The Country of the—Dead—

These are all out of my league, but I'm laughing and enjoying. More, please!

If I hadn't already sent mine in at this point, I wouldn't even bother. What's next? Are Richard Wilbur and XJ Kennedy going to have a gander? With each new posting, I feel more and more like a rogue and peasant slave.

Marion, I think the line is just fine.

Catherine, nice to see you here. Not fair using an actual Emily Dickinson poem, though. Or so it almost seems.

Stunningly good, Catherine.

Susan

Bob, the gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

Your Dorothy Parker is a gem. Surely a contender.

Catherine, nice to see you here. Your Emily is really good... probably too good for this contest. So, to echo Mr. Slater, maybe you shouldn't bother entering it.

Right, the point isn't just to be authentic-sounding (I always knew that dissertation would come in handy someday!) but OTT, hence funny. Which is a tall order, even if you all make it look easy. And there's way too much competition for Hamlet's soliloquy to be a prudent choice for a newbie.

Here's another attempt.

666

Because I hate the Moor—
And Him who starts with C. —
I’ll make a Plot to snare them Both
In double Knavery—

For C. has robbed my Place—
The Moor—my Wife—has Topped*—
Or so They Say—and that’s Enough
To see—his Heart—is—Stopped—

*var: Schtupped [The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Variorum Edition, ed. Thomas H. Johnson]

Marion, I forgot to say this before, but you should keep that line you were asking about.

Catherine, you should question Marion's motives just a bit when she tells you not to enter your Hamlet. I hate myself for saying this, but yours would stand a very good chance of winning 25 pounds. But British currency is so hard to exchange, and you'll need to stand in line at the bank forever, and the bank takes such a big fee, that I suppose it's not worth it. So yes, don't bother entering. Listen to Marion.

queueing up to diss the bard
 

Marion's is a hoot, though I would prefer 'While Uncle Claudius shags my mum' to 'While my uncle shags my mum'. It makes the line a better length & I feel naming the uncle makes it funnier. 'Shag' - v. Brit - seems to have taken hold in the US (via Austin Powers, I imagine). Till recently I'd only encountered it as baseball argot, probably in Ring Lardner, as in 'shagging flies in the outfield'. I suppose you could use 'screw' or 'pork', but probably for the Speccie 'shag' is right.

Pork' is new to me. 'Shag' in my youth was definitely down market, right common in fact, but nowadays even royalty says it. As for doing it, of course they always led the field at that.

When Kingsley Amis calls somebody 'an old shag' what do you suppose he means by it? There is a bird, a small cormorant, very common in Scotland, called the shag.

The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag

You know!

Another thought for overseas entrants...you might ask to have any winnings made payable to Roger Collett, Arrowhead Press, 70 Clifton Road, Darlington, Co. Durham, DL1 5DX United Kingdom. The collected works of M.A. Griffiths is scheduled to be printed in November, and it looks like the price might be in the neighborhood of 21 pounds. Stay tuned!

[Edited to say--sorry, I had a dyslexic moment there. Maz's book will be in the neighborhood of £12, not £21, which is pretty good for a 400-page book. (This would put the book's cost around $19 for US folks.)]

Got Milk of Human Kindness? Take Mine--Please!

The raven is hoarse as he croaks the approach
to my castle of Duncan, that royal slow coach.
So come, all you spirits that tend on things human,
unsex me! I’ve had it with being a woman.
Extinguish compunction and stopper remorse:
allow my fell purpose to follow its course.

You murdering ministers, come to my call
and convert all the milk in my bosom to gall.
Come, spirits of mischief! Come, thick night, as well,
in a cloak of dun smoke from the caverns of hell,
so the wound that it makes can’t be seen by my knife,
nor the heavens cry “Hold!” as I take Duncan’s life.


Robert Browning, “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”

Excellent, Susan. Maybe "that slow, royal coach"? Or "Duncan's monarchical coach"?

Ok, I promise this is my last one.

Betjeman’s Romeo

Miss Juliet Capulet, you are the sun,
With that sheen on your skin and your braids half undone!
I’m a fool on a cliff, and you give me a shove—
Is it any surprise that I’ve fallen in love?

Your daddy looked daggers all night at the dance,
While I hoped and I prayed for the tiniest glance
At your firm-muscled forearms and strenuous thighs.
Now you stand at the window, the sun in your eyes:

Though it’s quarter past midnight, you’d think it was noon,
And the greeny-faced, chilly-chaste, envious moon
Looks queasy as I am, your servant in livery
Dumbstruck and weak-kneed and lovery-shivery.

I wish I could be a glove warmed by your hand,
Or a shoe on your foot, or a wave on the sand
Between your strong toes as you kick me and run!
Miss Juliet Capulet, you are the sun.

Catherine, you'll be getting the bonus fiver, I feel sure of it! for your Bentjeman's Romeo. So delightful!

Catherine, a "slow coach" is a stupid person, so I am punning on that in the phrase. Your Betjeman is very entertaining, and I think the combination of him with Romeo makes a lot more sense than my yoking of Browning with Lady Macbeth.

Susan

Betjeman is usually a winner in these things. And here too I think.

Catherine! That's plain magic!

I'm betting on an arm-wrestle between you and Marion.

Susan--Ah, I hadn't heard that term before. Nicely done. I'm pleased you found Betjeman entertaining. And thank you too, Mary, John and Cally. Does each person get one entry? If so, I guess I'll go with Betjeman.

I think my favorite so far is Kipling as Iago, but I'm glad not to be Lucy. The quality of work on this forum such a treat.

No. You can have as many as you like. Use aliases after the first one, but always give your correct name and address as well. Back in the mists of time, oh best beloved, a man was reputed to have won EVERY prize with a different alias

So which of the legendary names would that be? Martin Fagg? E.O.Parrott? Roger Woddis? Or was it Bill Greenwell?
In Hay-on-Wye earlier this year, I was prowling round the Honesty bookshop, where books are left to deteriorate in the Welsh drizzle, and came across a book in rotten condition. It was 'Bank Holidays on Parnassus' published in 1941 by Allan M. Laing, the Titan of the New Statesman competitions in the thirties.
Much of the topical stuff is inevitably dated, but there are some first-rate parodies, especially of Bernard Shaw, and some good clerihews:

Herr Hitler
refused to meet Emil Littler
and so never became
a pantomime dame.

Jack the Ripper
even as a nipper
had designs on the vital parts
of tarts.

Strewth! The competition is Titanically talented this time round so I hesitate to chance my arm among the battling giants . . .

Housman's Hamlet

Here, Wittenberg forsaken,
At Elsinore-On-Sea,
This question leaves all shaken –
To be, or not to be?
Should we endure, unwilling,
Time's arrows, whips and scorns,
Or else, self-killing,
Depart for unknown bourns?

Unknown? Let princes ponder
And plodding ploughmen too.
Up, down, or over yonder?
Pitch-black, or sunlit blue?
We fear, once six feet under,
A sleep by nightmares vexed –
Best stay, and wonder
Just what on earth comes next.

I decided that Browning was too much of a stretch, so I have tried reworking it to Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib."

Byron’s Lady Macbeth (1.5.38-54)

The dear monarch trots up like a lamb to the fold,
With his mantle of purple and circlet of gold,
And the raven is hoarse as he croaks the approach
To my castle of Duncan, that royal slow coach.

So come, all you spirits that tend on things human,
Unsex me! I’ve had it with being a woman.
Extinguish compunction and stop up remorse
To allow my fell purpose to follow its course.

You murdering ministers, come to my call
And convert all the milk in my bosom to gall.
Pour your cruelty into me. Give me my fill,
So the eyes of the sleeper, once closed, will stay still.

Come, spirits of mischief! Come, thick night, as well,
In a cloak of dun smoke from the caverns of hell,
So the wound that it makes won’t be seen by my knife,
Nor the heavens cry “Hold!” as I take Duncan’s life.

Heavens, George well done. Martin Fagg was the titan involved. A schoolmaster in Shrewsbury I believe. I met Roger Woddis once at a reading in a London bookshop. He was aggrieved the day I met him, whether just locally or, as it were, cosmically, I could not say. Did not E.O. Parrott have a canal Barge, Maude Gracechurch. And the Parrott of course edited that excellent primer of verse forms, 'How to be well-versed in Poetry', which I commend to all Sphereans who do not possess it.

Blake's Macbeth

Dagger, Dagger, burning bright,
Sensible to naught but sight,
Handle toward my hand; I try
To clutch thee, but can’t do so. Why?

Fatal vision, art thou not
Sensible to being caught
In the hand? or art thou but
Proof I’m going off my nut?

What the dudgeon? What the blade?
What the gouts of blood, new-made?
What the heck? I see thee still.
Thou marshall’st me the way I will.

Dagger, Dagger, burning bright,
Sensible to naught but sight,
Why not, at bloody business time,
Dare frame the servants for my crime?

Great, Julie. Now there are so many fine entries, all of them consuming the full sixteen lines, that there may not even be room left over for honorable mentions. Excellent poem, though.

'Oh what a rogue and peasant slave...' by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller:

I ain't nothin' but a hound dog
And a rogue is what I is,
But this actor makes it seem like
He is in a total tizz.
He's a weepin' over Hec'ba -
Though she ain't no friend of his.

I'm supposed to be high-classed
But I just deserve to swing.
Still, I got myself a notion
That maybe the play's the thing.
Me I ain't never caught a rabbit
But I might just catch a king.

An inspired choice of author and poem, Julie! That's terrific.

I hear that Graham Greene once entered, under a pseudonym, a Speccie that required the imitation of his own style--and came second. Anyone know more about this? I'd love to read his entry and the one that came first.

Catherine, a quick Google search tells me GG wrote reviews for the Spectator, but it was the New Statesman whose contest he entered:

George, I'm especially tickled by your Plath and most recent Hamlet.

Choosing Rhyme (anonymous sources)

Eeeny, meeny, miny, minx,
Woe betide the man who thinks!
Every time I use my noodle,
I learn again that life is brutal.

Eeny, meeny, miny, mee,
Should I die, or should I be?
Who among us wouldn't care to
End the shocks that flesh is heir to?

Eeeny, meeny, miny, murry,
Should I dawdle, should I hurry?
Let me stop and take a breath.
Perhaps I will not care for death?

Eeeny, meeny, miny, moe,
The more I think, the less I know.
I have no answers, only questions.
Folks, I'm open to suggestions.

Wow! The competition is fierce on this one! I predict an Erato landslide!

Well, it will be if they actually enter, and enter the right competition!