[Brian Allgar]

Being a glutton for punishment, I couldn't help wondering if it could be done as a palindromic paracrostic. In terms of rhyme, the answer so far is: not quite.

My goodness! Here’s a piece of prime erotica -
A gorgeous creature made from a rib I shed,
Demure among the tropical exotica,
And smiling as she nibbles on a yam,
My nubile nymph, my buxom Botticelli!

I’d love to teach her how to Mum and Dad ‘em -
Maybe that serpent had the right idea:

An apple from God’s deli, ripe and red ...
Delectable! Delicious! Mamma mia!
And now, let’s - oh, you're wondering who I am?
Madam, I’m Adam.

[Adrian Fry]

Well done, Brian! I've admitted defeat with this competition but my hopeless struggle will make me all the more admiring (or do I mean jealous?) of the winners.

[Nigel Mace]

Ingenious as ever, Brian - and there was me thinking I'd done OK to get back to my starting letter. One effort is enough for me though - so the field for still greater ingenuity is all yours.

[Marcus Sevat]

Here's a morbid chain poem ......


Do not go gentle into that goodnight,
Thunder and rage until the final breath.
Have some fine malt to soothe the pain of death
Hoping Glenfiddich puts all fear to flight.
There are no happy shouts beyond death's veil,
Live every moment of life's little round,
Do all you can to dull death's awful sound,
Drink and enjoy before your eyes grow pale.
Everything flies from those who choose to wait
Till life is kind; act now and be what may.
Your future will soon fade to yesterday,
Your present is your past when you are late.
Each birth is the beginning of the end,
Do not go gentle, then, to death, my friend.


It seems fitting to finish with the letter that started the poem, end meeting beginning as it were.

[Jayne Osborn]

A big welcome to you, Marcus, especially to D & A!

Great poem. A fine single malt is the remedy for all ills. It's all my husband ever wants for Christmas and his birthday.
Glenfiddich, Aberlour (a cask strength A' Bunadh) and a Deanston currently grace our drinks cabinet. It's his birthday this Saturday so there'll be even more soon.

Jayne

[Marcus Sevat]

Thank you Jayne - or perhaps spaceebo is in order given your little babushka.

[Chris O'Carroll]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

I couldn't help wondering if it could be done as a palindromic paracrostic.

Well, of course you couldn't, Brian. A fellow performer once said about Laurence Olivier (I'm paraphrasing), "The wonderful thing about working with Larry is that nobody else would think to say, 'As I say this next line, I think I'll throw myself backwards across the table.' " When you've got the chops, you get the urge to use them.

I mucked around for a while trying to find an acrostic phrase spelled with letters that could end 16 lines of rhyme. I didn't succeed, but it ought to be possible given the number of words that rhyme while ending different letters:

zoo/through/blue/chew/you/coup/roux/ragout

fly/high/eye/radii

show/go/although/bon mot

flax/axe/attacks

comb/home/foam

etc.

[Nigel Mace]

Mmmm... Perhaps Lucy has a possible acrostic in mind? I've tried a blank verse solution.

PARTICULAR TRUTH

Can it be shown, by textual research,
how faithful scribes can count themselves Shia
and others, no less faithful, claim Sunni
is true, while both, none other entertain
nor contemplate mere moderation? Their
reason’s flailed by words of holy writ, whose
every phrase condemns as mens rea,
all free-made choice scorned by faith’s polemic.
Christian nor Muslim can abide a wit,
that hallowed phrases wont yield as foci,
in which to fry the human status quo.
Outside of faith's word readers - no question,
none - we know that truth’s not sub-syllabic!

[Brian Allgar]

Nigel, it's a neat idea to use the subject of the competition as your acrostic. Do you think it might be clearer if you capitalized the beginning of each line?

Chris, the examples you give would certainly help in the case of rhymes ending in a vowel sound. It's the consonants that are the bugger, even though you have some examples of those too. To get a regular rhyme scheme - e.g. AABB or ABAB - one needs an acrostic phrase containing the requisite amount of, say, DDs or PPs, or a phrase containing DxDx or PxPx (or homophones thereof based on your method), and in exactly the right places. Of course, the x's would also have to rhyme.

Acturally, the sentence I chose was quite helpful, since it consists mainly of MA pairs. Even so, I had a solitary letter 'I', and God stuck out like a sore thumb* (so to speak) since the only other D was several lines later, and the best I could do was a slant rhyme.

So I've abandoned all further attempts - that way madness lies - although I bet Bazza could do one on 'FUCK THIS FOR A LARK'.

* Since then, I've changed a few words and got rid of God (so to speak), so the slant rhyme is now a true one.

[Brian Allgar]

Nigel, I see you've spotted the automatic bonus - that the ends of lines form the same acrostic, although displaced upwards by one letter.