Eratosphere - The Oldie 'Soap' Competition results

I didn’t realise my subscription to The Oldie had expired, which is why this is late again, sorry. My thanks to Rob for alerting me that I needed to start this thread! (I rushed out and got the last copy of the magazine in Waitrose.)

Many congratulations to Bazza once again. Sheena Phillips’ poem took me quite a while to get right on this page. (I’ll forgive her though, as it looks good! :) )

Next comp is ‘What the eye doesn’t see…’ (See new thread)
Jayne

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The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

In Competition no 189 you were invited to write a poem called ‘Soap’. Your entries were celebratory, by and large. Gillian Ewing remembered Great Grandma, whose ‘carving knife would cut to size / Her long hard bar, commercial green’. D A Prince found ‘Proustian powers’ in a scrap of lemony soap left over from a holiday. G M Southgate provided the most enticing opening lines: ‘ ‘‘It’s Soapy Stevens!’’ Lionel Jeffries cried / Exultantly, in Two Way Stretch.’
Commiserations to them and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Sheena Phillips for her soap-cake-shaped poem.

XXXXXXXXXXXunwrap me

XXXXXXXtake me in your hands

XXXwet me, turn me over and over

VXpalm my dimpled curving surfaces

XXlove my oval lines and fragrant body

Xleave me just down here, I’ll wait for you

Xbe warned, though, I’ll soon be but a sliver

XXfaded, odourless and veined with cracks

XXXand you’ll dump me without ceremony

XXXXXfor my younger, smoother sister

XXXXXXXtake her in your hands

XXXXXXXXXXXXunwrap her
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSheena Phillips

There’s soap with which to clean one’s car, and soap to clean one’s shirt;
There’s soap, that’s called shampoo, to wash one’s hair.
There’s soap designed to clear away the daily grime and dirt,
And soap to spruce the cover of one’s chair.

A certain soap will purify one’s dull Venetian blind;
There’s even soap to clean a velvet hat.
But when it comes to purging out the muck that’s in one’s mind,
There doesn’t seem to be a soap for that.

When canines need a bathing, there’s a special doggie soap
That renders Fido freshened and pristine;
When miners come from out the mines, they all – instanter – grope
For heavy-duty soap to make them clean.

There’s soap to disinfect a bug-infested grassy knoll,
And antiseptic soap to aid the sick.
But when it comes to scouring out the sin that’s in one’s soul,
There’s not a soap on earth that does the trick.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXMae Scanlan

The soaps supply our conscious dreams,
Like folk tales on familiar themes
That let the eager viewer see
The fault lines of community.
How well the skilful dramaturge
Articulates the sinful urge,
The stolen kiss, the fatal word,
Coincidentally overheard,
The lie that kills the sweet romance,
The volatile domestic rants,
The two-faced moralist’s deceit,
The family that shames the street.
Here heartache, illness, vice and crime
Are in complicity full-time
To stir the brown stuff and ensure
That soaps eternally endure.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXBasil Ransome-Davies

On Sunday, when she wasn’t tired,
she’d set aside some time for me
and with transparent, oval soap,
blow bubbles in my bath. I’d see
her magically transform the foam,
with thumb and index finger so
stretch out an iridescent skin
that it was possible to blow,
with gradual and greatest care,
enormous bubbles! Beautiful!
I’d will them not to burst. They’d grow
as big as champion marrows till
they did. Then she would blow me more,
each floating lovelier than the others.
This labelled jar boasts ‘Bubble Bath’
but gifts no bubbles like my mother’s.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXDorothy Pope