[Jayne Osborn]

Hi Graham,

For starters, I'd definitely lose the 'you see' in L2; it's regarded as the classic quick-fix of the novice poet, if you'll forgive me for saying so. I'm sure you can find a better 'ee' rhyme.

I haven't got time to offer any more than that, sorry, as I'm struggling with a few bits of my own entry for another D & A comp! (It's the 'picnic' contest for the New Statesman and the deadline's looming.)

Good luck.

Jayne

[Roger Slater]

Hmm, Jayne, you're right. My little ditty also uses a filler "you see" and that will have to be improved.

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

Hi Graham,
Good luck.
Jayne

Thanks Jayne, and Good luck with your picnic! :-)

[Jayne Osborn]

Thanks, Graham.

I've just finished the picnic poem, which put up a bit of a fight but I hope I've got it nailed now.

Bob,
Your 'you see', I think, might just be the exception to the rule; it didn't jump out at me the way it usually does, anyway!

I've posted the half-true picnic story now. (Still haven't managed to 'crack' the NS comp yet )

Jayne

[John Whitworth]

This is the idea I posited a long way back.

Blasphemy

Here am I in tennis flannels and a blazer
On the turret of my castle built apart,
I have honed my body daily with a razor
To keep my skin as sinless as my heart.

There's a garden far below me which is Heaven
With animals and flowers and a lake,
And the years of all the angels are eleven,
And Satan squats behind them with a rake.

A gateway and an avenue of trees is
Where those angels gather, at the farther end.
How their bodies dance and shimmer in the breezes,
How every one among them is my friend!

But the avenue is long and growing longer,
Every minute, every hour of every day,
And I know my life is wrong and getting wronger,
Yet these are things I cannot put away.

It is blasphemy, the priests and levites mutter
From their gospel vantage on the other side:
The knives of God will slice your soul like butter
And your soulless body rot upon the tide.

Yet I cannot and I will not, though I wither
Like the flowers as I hold them in my hand,
And I hear a rustling, dessicated slither
As Satan repossesses all the land.

[Adrian Fry]

John, I suspect you have the winner there. Funny how your prose description of this poem in your ealier post made me think the poem would be simply horrible but the poem itself strikes me as craftsmanly and clever.

[John Whitworth]

Thank you, Adrian. I am relieved that the poem does not sound unpleasant. Did I mention the German film 'Guter Junge'? It is not horrible either, just very sad.

[Gail White]

Well done, John - just the right touch. When I start thinking blasphemy, I think of things like Mary Magdalene talking birth control with the Virgin Mary -- you know, stuff that would get your entry thrown out right off the bat.

[John Whitworth]

I think, Gail, that must be right in the frame. The point of blasphemy is that it is deeply shocking. It is one of the crimes of Jesus. 'Property is theft' in a nineteenth century context, would have been blasphemous, and a lot of the stuff that Nietzsche said about the sins of the weak.

And nowadays, that stuff about IQ and race, or, to people like us, suggestions that women's duty lies at home, what Hitler said about church, children and cooking.

[Adrian Fry]

I don't want to wax too philosophical here (yes I do) but I've always felt there is something childish about setting out to blaspheme. I remember, age 8 or so, cursing God and Jesus in an attempt to get him to strike me dead. I can't see that the artists, cartoonists and comedians who regularly try shocking in this manner are any different. To blaspheme is, I think, to accept that religious ideas and images have power.