Ha ha ha! :D These are all excellent. I'll try my hand. Here's Call of the Wild.

Curley's eaten
Spitz is beaten
Thorton's shot
Buck is hot.

Wow, that's already over 100 characters. This is harder than it looks. But still very fun. :) One more...

Feeling lonely
Among all the phonies
Holden is sad,
Or barking mad.

John,

I already sent mine in because, with all the talk about plagiarism, I got paranoid. Added one more too.

Now here's a question for you: Are you sure The Oldie doesn't mind if we post them here before sending? It's grand that Speccie doesn't mind, evidently, but do we know the same about The Oldie?

I've half a mind to delete the posts here unless we know for sure...

I don't know, Terese, but I doubt if the Oldie has found its way to the Sphere. And the judge is not a poet so doesn't have the poets' paranoia about this sort of thing. Not YOU, Athene. I mean Terese.

Sorry. There's a story about Sir John Gielgud, well known for his dropping of social bricks, complaining to the (aged) actress Athene Seyler about having to spend his life talking tripe to old bags. 'Not YOU of course, Athene!'

You're a sweet man, John. Seriously. I'd like to hear those words in your who-knows-what-it's-like accent & intonations. Do you have any audio poems on the net?

Of course you couldn't have known that when I first encountered the Greek gods as a girl, Athene was my favorite. No doubt the winged helmet played a part in that...

It has come to my notice that Seree is one of the winners in this arcane Twitterature contest.

Onya Seree!!!!

Good for Seree and good for me too because I've won something, though what and for what I couldn't say. Will tell you when I know.

John when you find out it will be even better! Congratulations. I hope you get the tea set.