The Oldie: Competition
 

IN COMPETITION' NO 127 you were asked for a poem, 'You can't tell a book by its cover'. Many entries were about books, but, partly because 'cover' rhymes with 'lover', others were about the latter.
Some, such as Bill Greenwell, wished that cover artists would read the book first 'Miners striking, Thatcher's roar: I Time for Nineteen Eighty-Four.' Peter Wyton pointed out that 'The covers of the Olympia Press Show no damsels in undress, The Book of Kells fails to portray Its abbey home in any way.' Basil Ransome-Davies played with the idea of mislabelled books, concluding his poem: 'I've just opened Baurri's Sexual Diseases And guess what I've got? Moby Dick.' Julia Edmunds mentioned that the title reminded her of a pantomime song 'You can't keep a horse in a lighthouse', an Emile Littler item. I looked it up, and one couplet goes: 'Oh you might keep a horse in a garage If you bring him his meals.'
Commiserations to them, and congratulations to those printed below, who win £20 each, with the bonus Taylor's of Harrogate tea and cake set, just as good as it looks, going to Katie Mallett.

You never would have known that he was rich,
His clothes were worn, he could have been a tramp.
He looked so dirty he could make you itch
Just being near. He had the smell of damp
Around him as the dank foul stink of mould

Hung on his old tweed jacket, yet he owned
Whole streets of properties, and priceless gold
In jewellery. In spite of this he moaned
About the cost of living. Hid behind
His dustcover he could have spent his cash,
But a miser's greed had grasped his heart and mind.
Sometimes covers, though at first obscure,
Can hint at truth - in spirit-he was poor.
Katie Mallett

While window-shopping in Montmartre
I glimpsed a book by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Intimacy was its name;
The cover starred a gorgeous dame,
Well-formed, enticing and quite bare
Except for flimsy underwear.
I looked and looked, and since I thought it
Augured carnal thrills I bought it.

Alas, vain hopes, since what I read
Was endless talking out of bed,
Bickering spouses, not hot lust.
The tale was tepid, dry as dust.
It seems that Jean-Paul Sartre's bent
Was lecturing, his sole intent
Not to arouse, but to disparage
The living death of bourgeois marriage.
GM Davis

Remember those promised delights -
The desert, the tent, and the lover
Straight out of Arabian Nights?
Well, wasn't that tame when you read it?
As tame as these jackets that screen
Skulduggery more than you'd credit,

Concealed in a pastoral scene.
You cant suss a book from its title
(The Reader and Animal Farm)
But sometimes deception is vital,
Transparency cause for alarm.
Recall Lady Chatterley's Lover?
We read it in spite of the ban, '
With Persuasion or She on the cover"
(Or perhaps The Whole Duty of Man).
Mary Holtby

Five characters, plus star, on red,
Once bound a little book of thoughts
Whose legacy left people dead.
The number ends in many noughts.
Jerome Betts

In the days of long ago
All that any book would show -
Writ discreetly on its spine
(Like the label on fine wine)
Keeping standards all the same -
Title, plus an author's name.
So potential readers must
As with drinkers, dear the dust;
Open, taste, and then decide
If they liked the stuff inside,

All’s a front now: brashness, blurb,
Garish colours that disturb
Every sense but common sense;
Blighted hope's the consequence.

So I chose you from the back,
Congruent and neat in black.
G McIlraith