[John Whitworth]

Everybody likes rhyme and metre except what I may term the poetry bureaucracy who haven't the skill to do it, God rot 'em.

[Brian Allgar]

Martin (the other one), I sympathise with your cousin Dee. Having an extra appendage can be very embarrassing. As it happens, I have two ... no, I'd better not go any further.

[Adrian Fry]

My cousin Gary is a skiver not a striver,
He’s a brawler and imbiber and he does not work.
He beds slappers quite at random, fathers kids he then abandons
Disabilities? He shams them with a shameless smirk.

My cousin Gary is a taker not a maker,
Beneficiary and breaker of the welfare state.
Keeps his mother in a tizzy and his social workers busy
While he lounges down the bookies with his feckless mates.

My cousin Gary is a liar not a trier
He’s a serial applier in the food bank queue.
Sure, he does a little dealing and a bit of petty stealing
Just to give himself the feeling that he works like you.

My cousin Gary is a loafer not a gofer,
Spending whole days on the sofa watching trash TV.
Though the papers all berate him, the authorities, placating,
Shower down benefits to sate him and he’s off scot free

[Brian Allgar]

Adrian, some very neat internal rhymes here (though I'm not too keen on skiver/imbiber or random/abandons), and we get a pretty clear picture of that sterling fellow, your cousin Gary.

Here are a couple of suggestions:

My cousin Gary is a skiver not a striver,
He’s a brawler and a swiver and he does not work.
He beds slappers quite at random, fathers kids but cannot stand 'em ...

Though the papers all berate him, the authorities placate him,
Showering benefits to sate him ...


(Best from Brian, thinker, drinker,
And an unregenerate tinker...)

[Adrian Fry]

Thanks for your suggestions, Brian. Swiver is a new word to me but a corker. I know my rhyming is sometimes inexact - I'm a prose man who dabbles at poetry rather than the other way about.
Ideally, the final verse should turn the thing around- in spite of all this, I envy him sort of thing - but I couldn't bring it off.

[Jayne Osborn]

This is a truncated version of my Literary Reviewxwin.

"I'd like a pair of those rubber gloves,"
says my Mother (aged eighty-four),
and during the next ten minutes or so
says the same thing four times more.

The "rubber gloves" are just napkins, which
are folded and stacked in a pile;
the waitress brings us a pot of tea,
with a false and indulgent smile.

This is the mother who taught me well,
to love literature and art,
who can't remember my children's names
but knows "Adlestrop" by heart.

We leave the café, our roles reversed;
me, with a child whom I love.
I denounce senility and then ...
wipe my eyes on a rubber glove.

[Graham King]

Grandfather marked my mind as few men did:
Those well-worn shabby clothes he’d aye dress in;
Hobnailed ex-miner’s boots upon his feet,
And yet something about him always neat -
A buttonhole, or cravat with a pin.
He kept old coins and screws, each in their jar,
Explaining to this child what treasures are
In conversation mixed with silence long.
I never heard him tell me I was wrong,
But oh! The tales that he could spin
Led me aright… a talent shared by few!
That garden speaks of him while still I live -
What tells? Cornflowers - his sharp eyes of blue;
But most, against the shed, his sleeping sieve.