[John Whitworth]

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

You were invited to write a conversation in verse between the bonfire and the compost heap.The challenge seemed to appeal tou your cthonic and pyrophilic instincts. 'I blaze! I burn! Byronic passions flame' began Jane Weller's boastful fire. No wonder Katie Mallet's compost heap cried: Look at you, you show-off/ With your curl of stinging smoke. GM Southgate's heap was of a similar opinion- Still your arrogance, bright boy/ for where I nurture, you destroy Julie Stoner's heap was humbler, 'Ihave worms: you've the Phoenix'. Like many of your heaps , Basil Ransome Davies's was contemplative: 'Bonfires dwindle and die out, like rivers in the sand / While compost heaps eternally abide.' Commiserations to them and congratulations to the authors below, each of-whom wins £20, with the fireside bonus Taylor's of Harrogate tea and cake set going to the excellent John Whitworth

I coruscate and flash.
My consequence is ash.
I brood in quietude.
I am a multitude.

Here, there, everywhere,
I dance as light as air
I brood. I breathe a breath
Of lifè, and life in death.

I am the great bow-bender
Who lives and dies in splendour.
The more you fret and shout,
The sooner you go out.

My arrows light the sky
They purge and purify
But I remain in rain
And sun, in sun and rain..
John Whitworth

Said the compost heap to the bonfire
'I'm getting the hots for you..
My inside's a mulch of emotion
And I've jilted the barbecue.'

Barked the bonfire to the compost heap
'Youre forever talking muck.
The blokes who've forked you over would fill
A Chelsea flower show truck.'

The compost cooed, 'Last Guy Fawkes,
As the whizz-bangs hurtled around,
You said you were burning for me,
That I suited you down to the ground.'

'My memory's a fading ember,'
Said the bonfire, 'you may be right;
But you'll have to warm to some other old flame,
For I'm going out tonight'
Peter Wyton

'Hello there, heap,' the bonfire said.
'I see you're in a stew.
Your lavish husk-and-peeling spread
Creates a heady brew?

Why, goodness, fire,' the heap replied,
Pulsating modestly.
'How flattering you should confide
You've got the hots for me.'

'It's true. You are so sweet, so svelte,
I'm burning with desire.
Your fine aerobic perfumes melt
The heart of this old fire.'

'Alas, we must be satisfied
With warm, platonic chats.
A closer intimacy might
Incinerate my rats.'
GM Davis

Your heap of rotting vegetation
Malodorous in its stagnation,
Where aphids, wireworms, bugs and slugs -
A coterie of garden thugs—
Make for your decomposing patch
To fornicate and then to hatch.
Bonfires dispose of all such trash
While making bountiful potash!

Your satanic noisome pyre -
That is wrongly called bonfire -
Brings smoke and smuts exceeding black
Stoked by a pyromaniac.
You pollute the earth and sky
Igniting other fires nearby
Necessitating firemen with axes
Thus adding to the council taxes.
Una Mc.Morran

'I love the way,' the bonfire said,
'You quietly decompose.
You-look as if you're all but dead,
Completely comatose.
But underneath that public face -
Or so I have been told -
Though glacial is your natural pace,
Your heart is far from cold.'
'If heat you want,' the compost drawled,
'You'll have it soon enough.
But never think my heart, so-called,
Is made of glowing stuff.
You mock my dull, deliberate ways,
But let there be no doubt
You may have one bright, flashy blaze,
But I will see you out'
Bill Webster