[Jayne Osborn]

Congratulations to our wonderful John W for another win, and hearty congrats too, to Gail, Bill and Bazza for holding up the sphere with Hon Menshes.
(I love Peter Wyton's poem, too, I have to say.)

Next comp on new thread.

Jayne

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe Oldie Competition
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxby Tessa Castro

IN COMPETITION NO 145 you were invited to write a poem called ‘Out of the
Picture’. Max Beerbohm, I learn from the big dictionary, was the first writer
credited with using ‘in the picture’ metaphorically. That was in 1900, and the figure of speech clearly relates to photography. Do people still speak of
going to the pictures when they want to see a film? I’m not sure.
Anyway, I was delighted by the focus, depth, tonal qualities and composition of your entries. Gail White’s narrator was a bridesmaid too fat to be allowed to appear in the official wedding photographs. Bill Greenwell caught the moment when the family dog stood ‘sea-drenched, about to soak us’. Adrian Fry introduced the chill note of the Party painting a man out of history, the three remaining in the photograph having been ‘told, between
speeches and wine, / What they must, but ought not, do’. It was from the movie picture that Basil Ransome-Davies’s narrator was cut, suffering ‘the heartache of being an out-take / The face on the cutting-room floor’.
So commiserations to those who remain mostly out of the picture and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Miles Kitchener for his dramatic monologue in the style of Robert Browning.

Gather round now, all twelve. Get close.
Joseph?
Ah no, lads! No joking! As I draw breath
I am too old for all that. Where’s hid then?
Reuben, help me with this tripod thing.
Ben,
Ho! Go find your brother. It’s the colours
Of his coat I want to catch. This camera’s
Far too many buttons, though. Yes, just
stand
Arms round each brother’s neck.
Reuben, your hand?
What’s this? Blood smeared to your
wrists. His coat? Yes,
The richest coat money could buy, to
bless
My favourite son. No need for flash! His
coat?
This animal, you say, was wild and smote
Him to the quick! My dearest son is gone?
If in this picture he would have outshone
You all. Better he’d been dropped into a
pit
Or else sold as a slave to far Egypt.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMiles Kitchener

When Holman Hunt was painting
His celebrated goats,
The wretched beasts were fainting
Inside their shaggy coats,

With no hats or umbrellas
To shield them from the sun
Those sorry little fellers
Were dying – all but one.

The Scapegoat is the live goat,
The dead goats out of frame.
Yet they are there; the trembling air
Remembers just the same.

My soul is an enchanted goat
The poet Shelley nearly wrote
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxJohn Whitworth

You were the one – and it had to be you,
Who whipped round the back at the
school photograph
To appear on both sides, one of the few
We knew would do anything for a laugh.

Present, correct, if deficient in hair,
Our reunion snapshot lacks just the one
friend.
Your garrison chaplain read a short
prayer,
Two chairs were set out for you, one at
each end.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxPeter Wyton

All he could do
was keep a foothold on the sliding stones
and focus on the deck chairs where his
wife
and her mother glared
in their latest quarrel, and the wind
made noses run.
He clicked the shutter once, twice, three
times
as a recompense
for these abrasive women and in hope
that some child decades hence
would see that album page and laugh
as he dared not.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAlison Prince

[Gail White]

Congratulations to John on another famous victory!

I'm pleased to get mentioned, too, as I never got the time of day from the Oldie before.

[Susan d.S.]

Congratulations to all!
Would love to read the other Spherian entries from Gail, Basil and Bill.
Post?

[basil ransome-davies]

Out of the Picture

Ah, the heartache of being an outtake,
The face on the cutting room floor,
The absence that throbs like an abscess,
A shadow or ghost, nothing more.

I'm sequestered from westerns and epics,
Not even a face in the mob.
It's monotonous being anonymous
And what's more it isn't my job,

Which is actually 'character actor',
Not an extra with no lines to spout,
But my dialogue's ripped from the film script
And my features are edited out.

They're jealous as hell, those marquee names,
Of the looks and charisma I've got,
So, beleaguered by movie-star egoes,
I'll always be just out of shot.

[John Whitworth]

Not that it matters now, but that should have been a winner, Bazza. Pointed and neat.

[basil ransome-davies]

Ta muchly, John. I especially enjoyed doing the hidden rhymes.