[John Whitworth]

Basil Ransome-Davies kept up the honour of the sphere with his splendid and exasperated effort. Full results below in Competition. Here is this week's insomnia inducing problem.

No. 2638: Wakey, wakey
You are invited to submit a poem singing the praises of insomnia (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 10 March.

[John Whitworth]

Now somebody tell me I've got the wrong end of the stick.

Wakey Wakey

Wakey wakey. Half past three.
Make yourself a cup of tea.
A cup of tea will clear your head.
The cat is waiting to be fed.
You feed the cat. The cat is stout
And stouter now. You put him out.
The moon is silver in the sky.
You cut yourself a slice of pie.
The moon is silver like a sickle.
You add a dash of onion pickle.
You put a tray across your knees
And tune to the Antipodes
Where mighty men are playing cricket
And England have another wicket.
Ponting is taken in the deep.
What a night to waste on sleep!

[Jayne Osborn]

Ok, my very dear friend John,

I hope you won't think I'm being hypercritical but only the last line is actually singing the praises of insomnia. I think it calls for much more of a 'Whoopeee, I can't sleep!' sort of thing - but it's early days yet; look how 'New word order' first started, compared with how it ended when we'd all got the hang of what was actually called for.

You always kick-start it for us, which is great, but I'm sure you can improve on this. That's my initial response, anyway. Onwards and upwards!

[Roger Slater]

I'm hoping to do better before the deadline, but just to break the ice:



Sleep one third of every day?
That means before you're dead
you'll piss away some twenty years
unconscious in your bed!

Insomnia's the way to go,
a blessing in disguise.
Don't fight it. There'll be time enough
someday to close your eyes.

[basil ransome-davies]

The middle lines are terrific, John – cadences, repetitions & euphonics that even in this light piece have a hypnotic, Wallace Stevens-like quality (I'm probably thinking of 'The Idea of Order at Key West', to my mind about as good as verse gets), giving the reader a sense of enjoyment from objective correlatives & vibes rather than overt celebration. So for me – even setting aside my personal view that cricket, as Joe Smith the old Bolton player & Blackpool manager put it, is 'like watching celery grow' – the final ones are comparatively dilute & pedestrian.

I wonder how many eratonauts will recognise Billy Cotton's old heads-up call.

[John Whitworth]

Cripes, Bazza, Wallace Stevens- America's greatest poet. I bloody wish. Your cricket blind spot I quite forgive. I have NEVER watched a football match. My father once took me to a Hearts and Hibs derby but all I could see was grown men pissing into beer bottles and throwing them on the pitch. Hearts won 4-3 so I am told. The ball goes from one end to the other with no sense or reason to it. One day I will sit you down to watch Virinder Sehwag bat. Celery indeed!

Wallace Stevens though!

[Roger Slater]

Insomnia

I really love insomnia
and so today I rue it:
last night I had insomnia
but sadly slept right through it.

The next time that insomnia
arrives to overtake me,
would someone please be good enough
to take the time and wake me?

[basil ransome-davies]

Toutes proportions gardees, you will understand, John; but I meant it, the formal excellence. I suppose I may as well get my feet wet here by chucking in a first draft:

No. 2638: Wakey, wakey

Four in the morning, Scott Fitzgerald said,
Is always the true dark night of the soul,
When waves of guilt and fear invade the bed
And sleeplessness is life without parole.

But now insomnia creates the chance
To light a doobie, go online and get
Your choice of virtual euphoriants
Proffered in lavish splendour by the Net.

For some it's porn, for others sports reports
Or news from God; whatever, click your mouse
And you'll be happy, leaving morbid thoughts
To wilt and die beside your snoring spouse.

The cyberworld is better than a dream.
It's more amenable, and has more class.
I spend the small hours in the screen's blue beam
While Debbie Harry rips out 'Heart Of Glass'.

[basil ransome-davies]

Just chat, John, but if I'd seen my first football match in Scotland I would probably have given up. I did watch cricket quite a bit in the fifties at the St Lawrence ground, as I was at school in Canterbury. The Australians who toured in the mid-50s (Bradman had retired but Harvey, Miller & Lindwall were playing) were unforgettable, tons of skill & a cavalier attitude.

[Jim Hayes]

In Praise of Insomnia

At night time my bedroom is teeming
with children cavorting and screaming,
and knocks on my door
I could well ignore,
but don’t, as I know I’m not dreaming

And as she comes wiping my tears,
and caressing, assuages my fears;
I never feel lonely,
she loves me-- it's only
that Alice is dead forty years.

To insomnia! I praise it and say;
may I be awake night and day—
those friends by my bed
are alive in my head;
but sleeping—they all drift away.