[John Whitworth]

Wel you know where THIS one came from. And, do you now what? I haven't written a poem to fit. Well, not yet.

No. 2782: supersize me

You are invited to write a poem in praise of fatness (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 23 January.

[John Whitworth]

Fat is Good

Let’s hear it for fat people
(Though fools call us obese),
We’re checks, braces and hat people,
So let’s hear it for fat people,
The bums, bellies and splat people,
All chip-butties and grease;
Let’s raise glasses to fat people,
And scorn diet police.

We’re sit-down-for-a-chat people
We're swans slandered as geese,
We’re more-helpings-than-that people,
Who sit down for a chat, people
Who drink wine by the vat people
Who praise God for increase,
We're fat-cat-on-the-mat people
With two dinners apiece.

[Roger Slater]

Let It Be

The universe weighed next to nothing.
God said, "I'll create
Things to fill this empty chaos.
Universe, gain weight!"

And all at once, at God's commandment,
Earth and Moon and Sun
Appeared and took their rightful places,
Time, at last, begun.

And what's the moral of this tale,
The lesson of this matter?
If you would serve the Lord who made you,
Go forth and grow fatter.

[Brian Allgar]

Nick Holbrook and I have been chewing the fat over this one. Here's what we've come up with so far.

I’m twice the man I used to be,
And working on a third;
My rollicking rotundity
May strike you as absurd,

Yet saucy wenches still cavort,
Despite my monstrous belly;
They find it tickles them to sport
Upon a mound of jelly.

Their mouths agape, my little tarts
Impale themselves with caution
When they discover all my parts
Are strictly in proportion.

So you may call me “tub of lard”,
But ponder, while you scoff,
That even Death will find it hard
To carry Falstaff off.

******************************

“Give me the fat!” cried Mrs Sprat,
“For that’s where all the taste is;
Bring streaky bacon, mutton fat -
To hell with where my waist is -

Beef dripping, lard, and turkey grease,
Just pile it on my platter.
Pork crackling, oily ducks and geese;
Who cares if I grow fatter?

I’m in a gastronomic dream;
A fat-free diet? Shove it!
Bring on the butter and the cream -
Cholesterol? I love it!

My husband wouldn’t touch a speck;
He said that fat could kill.
But then he broke his stupid neck,
So now I eat my fill."

[Brian Allgar]

John, highly enjoyable, although for my taste there may be too many repeated lines. But there's excess for you. (I have a friend and colleague who is known, for obvious reasons, as "two-dinner De Pratto".)

Roger, also very entertaining - but shouldn't it be "Time had, at last, begun"?

[Douglas G. Brown]

STELLA’S BIRTHDAY [1718 / 9] BROUGHT UP TO DATE

(If Jonathan Swift and Esther Johnson lived in modern times, and were schoolmates.)

When we were chums in seventh grade, a hundred pounds was all you weighed.
You were so scrawny, poor, and chaste; and had a 21 inch waist.
But, Stell, you’d flaunt your budding boobs, which wowed the preppies and the rubes,
( Though you confessed your greatest thrill came after you’d consumed your fill.).

In high school, you said "what the hell", and shed your moralistic shell;
A smile from you would knock the socks off trust-fund kids and football jocks.
But I was just a Classics geek, while Stella, you were blonde and sleek;
The star of the gymnastics squad, with cool guys lusting for your bod.

Each weekend you went on a date and shocked them with the chow you ate;
And after lusty college life, became a barefoot pregnant wife.
I’m saddened by your third divorce; in grief, you’ve eaten like a horse.
Your appetite exceeds your eyes, and so your belly does, likewise

Now at the age of 38, you’ve doubled both your age and weight;
Still muscular in butt and thighs, your waistline’s grown to twice it’s size.
Those jocks and trust-fund guys are wed, so you invite me to your bed …
Where, Stella, I let you take over; at love, you’re now a Supernova.

[John Whitworth]

Nice stuff, Douglas.

Brian, I was led into the repeats by the form, but I think you have a point and I go too far. So I have revised accordingly. I hope it looks better. Does it?

[George Simmers]

John, would 'maligned' fit the scansion better than 'slandered'?

[Brian Allgar]

I think it's an improvement, John. Replacing the repeated lines makes it more inventive.

[John Whitworth]

Thanks, Brian. I think so too. I like both of your but particularly the second. This is going to be a strong entry. Dammit.

Not to my ear, George. The short lines are supposed to go:

deDAH (pause) DAHdede DAH