[Ann Drysdale]

"Just a parody"? Story of my life...

[Martin Parker]

One more -- and my last! Actually I have 50-100 of this sort of thing, enough for a fat book if only some of the likely publishers would accept uninvited submissions.

Game, Set and Match!

I was Joan Hunter Dunn, your Joan Hunter Dunn
whose ardour soon cooled in the Aldershot sun.
For your tennis was poor and your idea of fun
was to sit in the car park till twenty to one
without your attempting the slightest attack
on my baseline defence. So I gave the ring back,
having realised that, married, we’d spend all our time
with you counting stresses and searching for rhyme.
But a suntanned young Aldershot goddess has needs
and mine were not little rhymed verses, but deeds.
So I married another, more dashing, instead
who was better than you at both tennis and bed.
And now you’re long dead while I’m still having fun;
so it’s game set and match to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

[John Whitworth]

No poem is well-known, if you define that as being a poem most people know. I should say 'The Good Ship Venus' is the only well-known poem by those criteria. That and 'Mary had a little lamb'.

My mouse poem is a REPLY to Burns, not a parody. The stanza is known as 'the Burns stanza' because Burns is the best known poet who used it. But he didn't invent it, he got it from Robert Fergusson, and many other poets have used it since. Including me.

[Gail White]

HIS LAST DUCHESS

Of course I liked Fra Pandolf – wouldn't you?
He was so kind and friendly while he drew
preliminary sketches of my face,
and this was such a deadly boring place.
I was just seventeen when I came here,
and didn't know my lord was so austere,
I hoped, since he was such a handsome man,
he'd be kind too, but what a puritan
he proved to be! And as I faithful wife,
I looked for small ways to improve my life--
rides on my pretty mule, the cherry trees
I planted in the orchard – things like these
were harmless, surely. And I thought it fun
to have my portrait painted. It was done
so quickly, but for just a little while
I had a friend, and paid him with a smile.
All harmless pleasures, for I'd surely not
be guilty towards my lord...but I forgot
how far a wife is in a husband's power.
He had me strangled in the northern tower.

[Lance Levens]

(Zurich)

So you're just hinting to the count's man that
you did me in and you never mention “fat?”

That portrait rendered by Fra Pandolph's hands
is all they know. I end with "There she stands."

Good show! Keep at it. I've lost some forty pounds
on kale and yak milk. Not as bad as it sounds.

A shame the surgeon couldn't restore
that faint half flush. If it's money, there's plenty more.

Sweet, some things even a Swiss spa can't do.
I weighed four hundred pounds. I was two of you.

I say you scorned my nine hundred years old name.
You should see their look of shock. The crime! The shame!

Don't gush it up too much. And must you imply
I was sweet up front and naughty on the sly?

I tell them you rode a mule about the place!
You? Tub of guts? On a mule? Can't keep a straight face.

So let's keep up the front until I lose
the weight. And you're still shucking off the booze?

Of course, my pasta-plated chicadee--
although the count's munificence towards me

is tempting. The dear man is made of gold!
See you in June. Think slim. You are getting old.

[Jayne Osborn]

What Writest Thou?

“Write me as one who loves his fellow men.
No – wait! That’s still not right. Let’s start again.”
The angel raised his eyes to heaven and sighed,
his patience wearing thin. God knows, he’d tried
to do his job with this Ben Adhem bloke
(whose tribe had increased somehow). Abou spoke
more low – he didn’t want his wife to hear –
“If I say ‘fellow man’ they’ll think I’m queer.
Apologies, I don’t mean to be rude,
but can’t afford to have it misconstrued.”
The angel, writing in his book of gold,
said, “Look, I only put what I’ve been told.
The words aren’t up to me; it’s not my place,
but how about... ‘I love the human race’?”
Ben Adhem thought about it. “That will do
quite nicely, thank you,” so the angel flew
to find the next man ‘Love of God had blest’
and prayed he’d have less trouble with the rest.

[FOsen]

Good point, Jayne about identifying the poems in question. My wife had never heard of 'Abou Ben Adhem' when our youngest daughter came home from school one day and announced they'd recited "A Boob in Autumn" in English class.

As for poor old JHD - very well played, Martin. I have a few limericks, but the only one I remember is:

Joan Hunter Dunn, Oh my Joan Hunter Dunn,
He sighed (he was still swollen-hearted),
When a voice by his chest said, Don't give it a rest,
More like Joan Hunter hardly-got-started!

Frank