The 16-line version of this one didn't fare well at the Spectator, and there's no reason to expect that the 24-line version would do any better at the Literary Review. Also, entering it would feel a bit rude now that I know Martin plans to enter his JHD poem. So I'll content myself with adding mine to the growing list here.
Still Weak from Her Loveliness
The decades have passed and the Aldershot sun
Has baked leathery wrinkles on Joan Hunter Dunn.
Triumphant at tennis and most other games,
This hoyden tricked out with a troika of names,
Still lively, but wizened and mottled as well,
Exudes now a lotiony, potiony smell
As she plays on the tournament ground of her skin
A match no contestant is destined to win.
Promoted from subaltern, sporting more brass,
Having now reached an age to be put out to grass,
I look forward to cheerful walks, holding her hand,
On what once was her father’s and now is her land.
My career was unstoried and I’ll die anonymous,
But that can’t take the shine off ancestral euonymus.
Our twilight, like Surrey’s, is glow bright enough;
She’s still got the carefully careless right stuff.
We seldom don evening dress as of yore,
That Hillman she drove is a dead dinosaur,
Our views about social class, Empire, and God
Strike our offspring as more than a little bit odd,
Yet I still find refreshment in gin-and-lime, tea,
And intimate moments with my JHD.
The racket she presses is warm-handled yet,
And she’s deft still at lifting balls over the net.
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