Eratosphere - The Oldie Competition

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

IN COMPETITION NO 135 you were challenged to a round of bouts-rimés, with the rhymes taken from the first half of Longfellow's 'The Builders. It was not one of his best and most of you did bettet Longfellow ended his poem:
Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky
I fear some of Longfellow's vacuousness rubbed off via his choice of rhymes. 'Rhyme itself was something of a stumbling-block which many accommodated by pairing it with 'reason, as did J CM Hlepple in a short tale of compensation culture. For D A Prince no rhyme or reason entered the dim brain of Raphus cucullatus, the dodo, until it became a cliché for business consultants. Basil Ransome-Davies adopted the persona of a low-brow who loves 'to watch the Graham Norton Show', if only because 'what the Higher Vision sees / Brings doubt and worry Better left unseen.’
Commiserations to these and more, and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the fireside bonus prize of a Taylor's of Harrogate tea and cake set going to Mary Hodges.

Damn and damn again, it must be fate.
I've lost my glasses for the umpteenth time.
Without them I can’t see to find them. Great!
I scrabble through my bag. There is no rhyme
Or reason in my searching high and low.
I tell myself I must not panic. What's the best
Way out of this impasse? Dear Lord, please show
Me what to do. I need a rest.
Frustration makes me raise
My voice in anger and my eyes are filled
With futile tears. I dream of yesterdays
When I was in control, and I could build
A life of ordered calm, no trials like these
To worry me. My head sinks down between
My hands. Then ... what's that my eye sees?
My spectacles lie smugly there—unseen.
Mary Hodges

I am a withered hand of fate.
I am a barnacle of time.
I am a scion of the great
That speaks to you in rhyme.

lam the lovechild of the low,
The enemy of all that's best.
I am a tawdry, tinsel show
And I can never rest.

My looks can kill, and I can raise
Sad spirits of poor souls, all filled
With longings for their yesterdays.
I can unbuild and build.

I am the messenger, and these,
Satanic messages between
The world that everybody sees
And what remains unseen.
John Whitworth

Were I the master of my fate,
I'd give myself an easy time.
I've harboured hopes of being great,
By writing memorable rhyme.
I failed. My spirits were laid low.
My critics always came out best.
I put my precious verse on show,
And yearned in public fame to rest

I still aspire, and hope to raise
My timid flag, albeit filled
With disappointing yesterdays,
Wishing my future verse will build
An album better than all these.
The poet lives betwixt, between
The happy chap the public sees
And the real me, unheard, unseen.
MBallard

It seems to both of them that somehow fate
Has chosen this to be their special time.
The seas are calm, the sailing weather great,
Two lovers holding hands - the stuff of rhyme.

A saxophone is playing, sweet and low,
'O Promise Me', a song that they love best.
Before the ev'ning's done, they plan to show
Their deepest love, before they move to rest.

He turns to her. 'A toast to us I raise'
(The waiter having seen their glasses filled);
'We bid adieu to all our yesterdays,
And on our joint tomorrows let us build.'

They treasure magic moments such as these,
And vow that naught will ever come between.
And that's when someone on Titanic sees
The giant iceberg, hitherto unseen.
Mae Scanlan