[Jayne Osborn]

COMPETITION NO 145

Someone has to take the photograph, and in any case not everyone gets in the finished print.

A poem, please, called 'Out of the Picture'. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries to 'Competition 145' by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG), fax (020 7436 8804) or email (comps@theoldie.co.uk) by 15 December.
Don't forget to include your postal address.

[Lance Levens]

Algernon, you are not an ugly lad!
Someone had to snap the shot.
True, your acne pits are rather sad
and nothing seems to staunch that stream of snot,

but those are not the reasons dad refused
to let you stand with us. You see his chief
has made it clear: the man is not amused
by ugliness that dwarfs belief.

Now you enjoy those summer holidays
at ritzy beaches where the water's clear.
Those take a wad of cash and Daddy plays
nice fifty weeks in every year.

So put the gun down now. Your daddy's prick
of a boss will be here soon with that troll
he calls his "girl". Back in the closet--quick.
In this family everyman plays his role.

[Susan d.S.]

In World War Two my father served in Sicily
and North Africa. A captain and flight surgeon,
his job was to cut men out of fallen planes
and piece them back together again, not much fun,

he said, all of that daily commerce with the dead.
He showed his faded sepia albums one day,
old photos of him and a lady “holding up”
Mt. Etna’s smoke; so unlike my Dad to clown or play.

Her name was Kate. Her curls had once been red, he said,
faded now to olive-brown. A pretty nurse.
Said he thought life with her might have been pleasant,
but in all the photos her face was cut out; worse,

sixty years in Dad’s mind had made her prettier yet.
I think my Mom, armed with scissors, had hoped he’d forget.

[John Whitworth]

Well, it's not a photograph so perhaps it won't do. Nevertheless...


Out of the Picture

When Holman Hunt was painting
His celebrated goats,
The wretched beasts were fainting
Inside their shaggy coats.

With no hats or umbrellas
To shield them from the sun
Those sorry little fellers
Deceasing – all but one.

The Scapegoat is the live goat,
The dead goats out of frame.
Yet they are there; the trembling air
Remembers just the same.

My soul is an enchanted goat
The poet Shelley nearly wrote

[Roger Slater]

Out of the Picture

Whose thumb is that I think I know.
His face is not depicted though;
The shot he took is sharp and clear.
In Photoshop, the thumb will go.

Photographers harrumph and sneer
But once it's made to disappear
The thumb exposed there by mistake
Won't make the photograph less dear.

It's mine, okay? For heaven's sake,
I did not want the lens to shake
And so I used my hand to keep
It still, then felt my tight grip break.

The shot is lovely. Take a peep.
Ignore my thumb, and do not weep,
For I can crop this in my sleep,
For I can crop this in my sleep.

[Jayne Osborn]

Roger,

I love this Frost-y rhyme - I do.
It's excellent, so well done, you!
It really ought to win, I think,
It really ought to win, I think.

[Jayne Osborn]

Hi Susan,

This is a very poignant poem. Two small things: did you mean to alter the rhyme scheme in S3?
And her face framed with curls he said were red, but olive now confused me a bit. We might say 'olive skin' but it seems a little odd to me to describe hair as being that colour.

I think a bit of juggling with that stanza might help. Good luck with this

[Roger Slater]

Thank you Jayne, Catherine, Lance and Susan. Here's another crack at the final stanza that works in the sheep as suggested. Improved?

The shot is lovely, lambs and sheep
Still gambol in my camera's sweep;
I promise, there's no cause to weep,
For I can crop this in my sleep.

[Susan d.S.]

Hi Roger,

Good, but I miss the Frostian repetition of the last two lines.

[Sharon Fish Mooney]

I have no idea what these contests are/will explore-- here's one that might fit -- I originally titled it Natural Selection but Out of the Picture works too



Looking through old photos,
I found the one of all the boys
in brown, lined up in rows
before the barracks in a town
in France. My father never talked
about the war or purple hearts,
but always watched old movies
Friday nights where frail men
died, the fittest men survived.
I watched them too though never
really knew what they went through.

I took that photo to the funeral
home for all to see. At calling hours
some men came Dad knew. They
laughed together, cried some,
shared collective memory.