[John Whitworth]

That is very good. Dammit!

[Jerome Betts]

Many thanks, John. Competition is already very hot on this one. Brian, I didn't notice your shocking-stocking rhyme before I posted

[Martin Parker]

Jerome, having read your Betjeman I have consigned my own to the bin.

I doubt if this one is a goer. But I hope my namesake would have recognised the manner of her exit from many a Round Table lunch --


"Dear Santa," from Dorothy

A limousine? You've still not brought one yet.
This broad now reckons it's her turn to get
a Cadillac, for preference, or an Oldsmobile,
a Studebaker, Pontiac or coupe de ville –
not one more perfect rose:

maybe a Packhard, Chrysler or a Cord
or at the very least a top-range Ford
(though not an Edsel, Santa, I implore).
This dame has pressing need to ask for more
than one more perfect rose

so folk at The Algonquin can applaud
each day when she's post-prandially poured
into a car that reeks, Oy vey! of money's stench.
Dear Santa, super-uber Merry Christmas Mensch,
please not another perfect bloody rose!

[Sylvia Fairley]

Zepheniah, perhaps - all the presents (except the turkey) are in a Christmas gift catalogue that's just plopped through my door...


If yu wanna be kind dis Christmas
Dis is the stuff I like,
A bubble-wrap suit an dem jelly beans
An a Jedi dat glows in de dark.
Den dere’sTerry de swearing turtle
An de soap dat’s a gnome on a rope, hey!
An one of dem singing egg timers
Dat mek music an play reggae.
An a Borat mankini, an whistling keys
An mebe a onesie an a spud-firing gun,
An I wanna have one of dem turkeys,
Cos a turkey is cool an likes fun,
It could hip-hop along wid de turtle, yu see,
An mek friends wid de gnome on a rope,
For dis is de moment fe yu an fe me
To mek dis a christmas WID LUV.

[Melanie Branton]

I love all of the above and cannot hope to compete. This is my least bad effort so far:

It is a hopeful Christmas list
And ‘twas writ by Samuel T. -
A list of things he doth desire
To find beneath the tree.

I fear thee, Father Christmas!
I yearn for something nice.
I fear that thou might fob me off
With hankies and Old Spice.

I want, instead, an albatross
With feathers white and snowy,
A dulcimer, some honeydew
(Quite rare in Nether Stowey),

Perhaps some pen nibs of my own,
As Wordsworth keeps on hoardin’ ‘em,
But, failing this, I’d settle for
A year’s supply of laudanum.

[Ann Drysdale]

Welcome, Melanie. You just made me roar with laughter!

[Chris O'Carroll]

I feel I must warn the assembled company that Melanie Branton is a formidable light verse talent who evidently aims to lull us into a false sense of security with this "cannot hope to compete" charade. She took first prize in the most recent Flash 500 Humour Verse Competition, which runs four times a year. And a few quarters back, she swept all three prizes in that comp. I believe she is the only person ever to accomplish that feat, although Martin Parker did once take two out of three.

Welcome, indeed, Melanie. Your presence here sets the bar higher for all of us. I shall have to petition Santa for special help.

[John Whitworth]

Yes. Nice piece.What is this thing about Old Spice?

[Melanie Branton]

Thank you, Ann, John and, especially, Chris for the very warm welcome.

(In fairness, Chris, I think I benefited that quarter from the post-John Hegley slump/lucky draw of a judge who just happened to share my puerile toilet humour. John Hegley hated me. And I've never written a poem so memorable that placed poets in subsequent quarters pay homage to it!)

Very happy to be here amongst so many whose work I know and greatly admire from Flash500/LightenUpOnline/Light Quarterly etc

This challenge is tough - writing a poem in the style of a famous poet is doable, writing an appropriate Christmas list for a famous poet is doable, but doing both in just 16 lines is not easy.

[John Whitworth]

To be hated by John Hegley is a very wonderful thing. I met the chap once. A terrible creep I thought.