The Oldie "Toast rack" competition. Deadline 28th June
 

Don't you think that people who write "heated, controversial" letters to The Daily Telegraph about toast racks need to get out more, for pity's sake? They clearly have far too much time on their hands! :rolleyes:

Oh well... I haven't seen any of the letters, though I'm beginning to wish I'd seen this riveting debate!

Good luck with it.

Jayne

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

COMPETITION No 165
There has been heated controversy recently in the letters columns of the Daily Telegraph about the use of toast racks. Please compose a poem with the title ‘Toast Rack’. Maximum 16 lines.
Entries to ‘Competition 165’ by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG), email (comps@theoldie.co.uk) or fax (020 7436 8804) by 28th June 2013. Don’t forget to include your postal address.

“Toast Rack! -Lord Arthur Rack, of whom to boast
Is mere due. Let all praise him, coast to coast!
For we owe him so much;
What other man can touch
His greatness? So I say to you: Rack, toast!”

“Free energy from fusion: what a whizz!
The key to that discovery was his.
The deserts, irrigated;
Pure water now filtrated;
Clean airships, elevated: all Rack’s biz!”

“To Arthur Rack, I bid you, raise your drink!
Our debt to him is clear to all who think:
He’s brought the world such wealth!
Let’s also drink the health
Of his dear widow Lil – still in the pink!”


[I acknowledge my debt of inspiration to band The Scaffold.]

As John would say, here's one that I prepared earlier -

Chrome plated Belling from the Swedish lowlands,
purring with pleasure at its rye bread thrill,
seeds of sesame,
pomegranate, pumpkin,
browned to perfection on the shiny grill.

Teflon-coated sandwich maker hums light pleasantries,
gestating paninis in her smooth cream flanks.
Aroma of prosciutto,
porchetta, mortadella,
wafts on the breezes of the Arno’s banks.

Dirty British toaster with its smoke-caked toast rack
leans to attention on its three worn legs.
Bread from Sainsbury’s,
the Co-op, Tesco’s,
groomed to be smothered by scrambled eggs.

We’re the Spanish Inquisition. We have strapped you in position
For a cosy little chat with Torquemada,
And we feel we ought to warn you as the manacles adorn you
That your chances of escape are strictly nada.

We advise you to be civil; do not tell him lies or drivel;
He’s a moody gent, and can’t abide derision.
As you lie upon the rack, we’ll slowly elongate your back -
It’s an instrument of wonderful precision.

When we turn the wheels and winches, you will stretch by several inches,
And you’ll feel excruciating indigestion.
After many days of traction, we'll conclude, with satisfaction,
That you’ve told the truth and answered every question.

But we have to be quite certain that we’ve drawn each sinful curtain,
And your soul is fit to meet the Holy Ghost,
So we’ll ratchet up the rack until we hear the fatal crack
That denotes the job is done, and you are toast.

On the same lines as Brian. Sick minds think alike.


The Breakfast Inquisition’s said
To have great expertise
Is making bits of heated bread
Recant their heresies.

A crunchy slice of Mother’s Pride
Will crumble like it’s dust
If told a knife’s to be applied
Beneath its tender crust.

Confession from a sourdough
That’s scorched a tawny brown
Will come when its tormentors go
To fetch the crumbscrews down.

But should these fearsome methods fail
To make their victims crack,
All instruments of torture pale
Before the dread toast rack!

You guys should be writing Broadway musicals.

Poor toast rack, I lament what you've become,
There was a time when you displayed charred bread
To great effect, for those who fancied some.
Yet lately one observes a thing of dread -
Your rackdom when reduced to leaning letters
(That come from Tom and Dicks who want to shift
Their wares at breakfast time). Next we'll have sweaters,
Shoes and coats about the place, I'm miffed;
Such scurrilous displays are emblematic
Of wider, falling standards on this Isle.
That things aren't what they were is axiomatic,
The state of play at breakfast's often vile:
Time was when toast was racked as God intended,
Not now, a buttered missive's less than splendid.

Toast Rack

Blood of Bishop,
Gore of Knave,
Hulk of headless Knight—

Only in Old Blighty
Could a “Toast Rack”
Start a fight!

Toast Rack
 

A heated controversy burns on Shakespeare’s sceptred Isle
About the humble toast rack. Has it gotten out of style?
The advocates of tableware from ages pre-Edwardian
Regard a proper toast rack as a stately little guardian

Of desiccated slabs of toast (with soggy gobs of butter)
Precisely racked in serried rank, 'midst breakfast table clutter.
A crispy texture in a slice of toast is deemed a virtue;
(They claim a lack of warmth therein will never ever hurt you.)

But rack opponents elbow in, and cry in frantic voice
That banishment of toast racks is a beneficial choice
To slow the rate of toast’s unique black-body radiation.
“‘Tis warmth, not crunch, that makes a piece of toast a fine collation.”

The Daily Telegraph debate lets both sides plead their case
In letters to the editor which grow more “in your face,”
Until each faction stoops to slinging marmalade and jam.
Though both are partly in the right, who really gives a damn?

And this is one I prepared while swimming up and down:

Toast Rack

I sing the toast rack, subject most
Befitting ode and sonnet.
My father had a rack for toast.
He leaned his paper on it,

An organ multifarious,
Of wit and wisdom fashioned,
To which, on topics various,
He wrote in terms impassioned.

Dear Sirs, I rue the day (so ran
The temper of his letters)
The working classes first began
To criticize their betters.

And, many a morning, still I see
My father's furious ghost
Consume, with marmalade and tea,
Another rack of toast.

You write swimmingly, John, indeed you do.

Why thank you Janice. The third stanza was the problem. I swallowed a lot of water.

Sorry, a pet hate of mine - why they bring the bleedin' toast before they bring your fry...

Oh toast rack, venerable silver toast rack,
how you inspire a heaviness in my heart.
Upon this pristine white tablecloth, thou art
placed and the young waitress smiles and we smile back.
But, adorned with toast, triangular and warm,
your deep crenellations, to my mind, suggest
the fort in the desert in that film Beau Geste,
where Robert Preston fools the infidel storm
by propping up the now lifeless legionnaires
in the battlements. And so my lips turn black,
for I know too well, stately, shining toast rack,
that thy oh so tempting and warm-scented wares
will doubtless be cold and hard and dead and dry
by the time I have finished eating my fry.

Nice one, Peter. I have no idea what the solution is.

It has occurred to me that in my poem the phrase 'working classes' might be 'lower classes' or even 'lower orders'. Any views, Sphereans?

John,
I favor "lower classes", which would include the non-working. I would write "huddled masses", which is from Emma Lazarus' lovely "The New Colossus" , on the Statue of Liberty. But, I doubt that would work in the UK.

The phrase didn't jump out as me as a problem when I first read the poem. But now you mention it, use of the term 'working classes' might be taken to imply some degree of sympathy with Marxist analysis, whereas 'lower orders' conveys a more unconflicted High Tory outlook.

Hi John,
I like 'hoi polloi' for your poem's S3 L3, with its inclusion the line could then benefit from alliteration and read, 'The horrid hoi polloi began'. Just a thought.


Go well.

To a Strack
 

Dear Strack, I’m stricken with your charms!
You have so many graceful arms;
Your eyes, deep-gazing into mine,
Are lovely-hued, and number nine.
So - could we possibly be one?
You’d have my heart – as you have none,
With pulsing tubes throughout, instead.
Head might say no; you lack a head:
Your brain’s distributed within
Your chest (that’s rich with frond and fin).
Embrace so tender shall enfold
Us- if your tendrils fair take hold!
Need such love be a hopeless task?
Am I presumptuous to ask-
Is that a raygun in your pouch,
Or are you pleased to see me?- Ouch!


[I've toyed with a zapper, phaser, laser and maser - so to speak - before settling again for my first choice of 'a raygun'.]