[John Whitworth]

My, Brian and Bazza are difficult to beat, or even equal. But Bob Scechter managed it this week. Well done him and the two champions.

Winter’s tale
In Competition 2826 you were invited to submit nonsense verse on a wintry theme.
The line between sense and nonsense is a blurred one; certainly Carroll’s crazy world has a bonkers internal logic all of its own. But perhaps the best way into nonsense is to put the quest for sense aside for once and simply surrender yourself to the whimsical, the topsy-turvy and the fantastical.
The winners below take £25 each. The bonus fiver is Brian Allgar’s.

’Twas winter, and the gringeing goves
Did quave and quemble on the ice,
The cameroon howled like a loon
And nibbled frozen lice.

‘The miliband is close at hand!’
He sneezed with fear and snarled with pain.
‘A thousand legs like stumpy pegs,
Yet only half a brain!’

They called for help, they called for kelp,
They even called upon the loris,
But he, extinct, just blurped and blinked,
And mumbled: ‘Try the boris.’

The hero came, though limp and lame,
And chorkled through the snigid forest.
The miliband made one last stand,
But ended bagged and borissed.
Brian Allgar

There’s a reindeer in my bathtub, there are robins in my drawers
And the ghost of Enver Hoxha has dressed up as Santa Claus,
While the cat is mixing Snowballs with a special festive twist
(Angie Merkel wants to help him, but she’s on the waiting list.)
Since the Mafia stole my clothing I’ve been freezing in the nude,
With only Crossroads on the box and only sprats for food.
Once Madonna came for breakfast but she couldn’t break the ice,
And Roger Moore sent margarine, but no one does that twice.
I remember in the seventies, when Hitler was top dog,
A PhD in Physics was like falling off a log.
That’s a kind of consolation when you’re castaway on Mars,
And your beauty sleep is ruined by the howlingof the stars
And mutant rabbits chew your toes and toothpaste costs the earth
And whenever there’s no surfeit there is sure to be a dearth.
As one afternoon in Rickmansworth I said toHarold Pinter,
‘You think spring is a bastard, mate? Just wait till bloody winter!’
Basil Ransome-Davies

About this time a year ago
My cat (whose name is Figaro)
Declared, ‘The summer’s dead and gone.
If you’re so smart, switch it back on.’
I built a season-shift appliance
With old tin cans and arcane science,
Intoning, as I launched the thing,
‘Abracadabra! Let it be Spring!’
There was a very short delay —
Six months or thereabouts, I’d say,
Six months of ice and snow and sleet —
And then it worked, and worked a treat.
But now it’s cold once more, and snowing,
And Figaro is looking knowing,
I need to make this thing work faster
To save my status as The Master.
Noel Petty

When plodpaves crake with glattered frust
and slitheringers mode,
when every poddle lies be-crussed
on ankry-snapper road;
when dongling stabbicles forsend
their eavish snaggle-barbs,
and drefts of nimbo-whoosh empend
the troon and closh and carbs;

then is the sillion of fluxesse
as shupping grobbles all —
the plistock dipped, the cashy cless
for famifootle grawl.
And wostesome grom explends and fills,
the histrate cofflers groan
till New Yorn uffers gregious bills
to cardicroppers moan.
D.A. Prince

Because it was winter, the snowflakes were glad.
With six legs apiece, they all danced.
They sparkled and swirled and cavorted like mad
as the murderous springtime advanced,

and glaciers were melting, but healed when they froze,
and branches were dreaming of blooming,
and bears were enjoying a wintertime doze,
and plants were for now unassuming,

when out of the dark, as the sun spewed its glare,
there were songs that nobody had written,
and somebody heard a young mother declare
that her daughter had lost her left mitten.
Robert Schechter

Flurrily downily
All over coverly;
Hush falls around,
In the air, on the ground.
Tingily fingerly,
Breath coming mistily;
Days of sheer joy
For a girl or a boy.
Slippily slidily,
Tread very gingerly,
Fearing disaster,
The splint and the plaster.
Freezily bitterly,
Muttering grumbily,
Oldies say ‘Pshaw!’
As they long for a thaw.
W.J. Webster