Speccie Secondhand by 8 August
 

This was one for the A team, or most of them viz Bill Greenwell, Brian Allgar and Chris O'Carroll. I didn't even get to the starting line though I'm an avid scandifan, but these guys are right on the button. They were so good they all read like the same book. I particularly liked Brian Allgar getting Ruth Rendell in there.

The next competition is more my sort of thing. I am sure lots of you will do something good.

NO. 2759: second hand
You are invited to submit a well-known poem rewritten by another well-known poet, e.g., T.S. Eliot rewrites ‘Ozymandias’ (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 8 August.

This strikes me as near impossible: I'll sit it out and watch the Masters (and Mistresses) get to work on it.

We've done that around here before. I think we called it "cross-dressing" poems. Here's one very old one of mine I dug up that it technically 16 lines but still seems too long and lame to enter:


Ode to a Nightingale (Keats), by Ogden Nash


1.

You know the way your heart can ache as if you swallowed hemlock and it was making you feel somewhat sleepy and nappy?

Well, right now it's happening to me, and all because a nightingale off in the trees is singing in a way that I almost envy but which scares me into thinking maybe there's such a thing as being too happy.


2.

Oh how great it would be to have some excellent sparkling wine and a huge goblet that I could fill up so the beaded bubbles would sparkle right up to the brim.

I'd love to get so utterly drunk that my consciousness would fade away and I could invisibly follow you out into the forest where it's extremely dim.


3.

I could fade away, in fact, and quite forget all the horrible things that a bird like you doesn't even know about, like illness and mortality and so many problems that the very act of thinking causes sorrow,

and like the fact that love doesn't last beyond tomorrow.


4.

Away! Away! I plan to follow you, not by getting drunk but writing verse.

The night is tender! The stars are bright but their light doesn't reach me here in this garden and it's like a a perfectly dark yet somehow glowing universe.

5.

I can't see the flowers at my feet or get a look at the amazing stuff I'm smelling in the garden as I lie here in the grass beside a tree,

but there must be lots of hawthorn, pastoral eglantine, violets and musk rose, or at least that's what it smells like to me.

6.

I'm listening to you here in the dark as I proclaim that I've often thought about dying a painless death, and I've even written poems in which I've made that boast.

And now more than ever death would be sweet if I could do it while you were singing and if you'd promise to keep on singing after I turned to compost.

7.

You don't know from death, oh bird, and your voice has been heard since ancient times by everyone from emperors to Ruth among the corn.

Your song's forlorn.

8.

And now's the time for me to bid you adieu and to give up my vain desire of using poems or wine to lose myself while finding bliss in the losing.

Your song is fading and now it's pretty much gone. Am I awake or snoozing?

Well, it IS sixteen lnes but Im not sure she'll wear lines as long as that. Pity. I like it.

Philip Larkin Rewrites Dunbar's 'Timor Mortis'

Whenever I succumb to cold
I fear the end of being old.
Whenever I am sick in bed
I worry about being dead.

For Death's a democratic thing.
The Queen will die. Her dad the King,
He died. Dad did. They all go through it.
There's nobody who doesn't do it.

Financiers, as rich as Croesus,
Fall prey to various diseases.
Immortal poets, even those,
In course of time turn up their toes.

Eliot, Housman, Auden, Larkin,
All call, perforce, the Lord of Dark in.
He stills our song. He stops our breath.
I am consumed by Fear of Death.

I also recall that many of us here rewrote the Red Wheelbarrow poem in the mode of a variety of poets. I've just looked at mine, and they don't stand the test of time, but others here might dust theirs off and see if they fly.

Rondel

François Villon paraphrases the sentiments
of the Duke of Orleans -

Now sling your hook and bugger off
Remorse, regret, repentance, rue
I’ve had it with the lot of you.
You’ve fucked things up for long enough,
Pissed on my chips and ruined stuff –
As of today I’ll start anew
So sling your hook and bugger off
Remorse, regret, repentance, rue
If you come back I might get rough
With all you lily-livered crew.
I’ll kick your arses black and blue
And if you whinge and whimper – tough!
Now sling your hook and bugger off.

Delightful, John! You know what I've long suspected--that death can be made into a feverishly amusing theme. I'm especially fond of your

...Her dad the King,
He died. Dad did...

for reasons I shall keep a state secret.

I wonder if it's okay to recast a soliloquy instead of a "poem"? If so, some of us may re-use items from an earlier contest.

Ann, it's a delight.

Ann, I know nothing about Villon or the Duc d'Orleans, but I love the phrase:

Pissed on my chips

It reminds me of when I was at school. The boys who served the meals had "first grab" at seconds, although they continued serving the others. This sometimes led to conflict. One boy, to ensure that his extra helping was still there when he had finished serving, glared at the other server, and spat in his own brimming plate of lumpy tapioca. When he got back, the other boy had eaten it.