[John Whitworth]

This looks promising, don't you think?

A poem as a dialogue, please, between you and a photograph of a younger you. Maximum 16 lines. Entries to Competition No 116 by 25th September. email comps@theoldie.co.uk. Don't forget to include your postal address.

The bonus prize is a Taylor's of Harrogate tea and cake set. I wonder what that is. All prizewinners win £25.

[Terese Coe]

Oh, this could be very interesting. What's the deadline, John?

While I'm here, belated thanks for your kind words in the Cautionary Tale thread--there's an awful lot going on here and I have to keep moving! I haven't been sending in to most of the contests lately, but I might try this one despite the fact that it requires a certain schizophrenia...

[John Whitworth]

Sorry, Teresa. I've put it in at the top.

[Marion Shore]

"Behold my thick and lustrous hair,
my skin, so fine and wrinkle-free;
Now look into my eyes and swear
you wouldn’t kill to be like me!"

"Would I trade all I hold within,
the strength, the wisdom, if I could,
for the perfect hair and skin
of callow youth? You bet I would!"

[John Whitworth]

Marion, I haven't looked at this more or less since I put it up. I'm going to have a bash at it. meanwhile, your bash is a good one. Andrew Marvell's the one for dialogues. No harm in aiming high eh? I also remember a remark of Auden's. hed was an inveterate editor of his own poems, changing them and drpping them because he no longer approved of the sentiments 'the necessary murder' and horrid commie stuf like that, but he did remark that his younger self would have felt horror at the idea of an old fart beinglet loose to ruin his poems. When I was a little boy the idea that I might actuallylive to see in the millenium filled me with disbelief. And now.... What I need is GRANDCHILDREN. My daughters had better look to it.

What you need is another stanza or too. Think tea-set.

[John Whitworth]

Well, the cat and me have sat up for an hour or two and we've come up with this, more depressing that I had expected. But the cat is even older than I am (in cat years anyway) so blame it on him.

Competition No. 116: Dialogue

Speak up, my boy. Don’t think you can’t.
Though you may seem as good as gold,
I know (who better?) that you aren’t.
It’s just that you’re so old.

Too true, alas, but young at heart.
Don’t stagger back and look appalled.
I have much wisdom to impart.
It’s just that you’re so bald.

Good Heavens! You were balder once.
We really ought to have a chat.
Speak up! Don’t sit there like a dunce.
It’s just that you’re so fat.

Old, bald and fat, alas, you’re right.
I am the ruined shell of you,
So pert, so pretty and so bright.
You’re not. It isn’t true.

[Seree Zohar]

You sat before the mirror, and practiced with your eyebrow
To get that Marlene Dietrich look, hoping to seem highbrow.
These days, when your mind’s blank, and even when you frown
Your perma-tinted highbrow eyebrow’s up and won’t come down.

[John Whitworth]

Ah Seree, there's NOTHING to be said fo getting older, is there? Wisdom? Huh! Actually there IS something. Watching the jeunesse doree (where does that accent go?) of one's youth ageing and looking JUST AS BAD!

Closer to Heaven though. Why does that idea fail to grip?

[Roger Slater]

OLD PHOTO

My younger self who's pictured here
looks up as if to say,
   "I'm full of promise, and you know it,
    older self, so don't you blow it,
or there'll be hell to pay!"

I look back at my younger self,
that snotty little kid,
   and answer, "I am glad that you
   died years ago so never knew
that that's just what I did."

[Seree Zohar]

another utter silliness -

.
T’so cold without. [Whew]. So hot within.
I pause. Oh man, the truth sinks in.
They’d called me ‘cool chick’ – they’d meant hot
but the hot I was then is not what I’ve now got.