[Catherine Tufariello]

Excellent, Susan. Maybe "that slow, royal coach"? Or "Duncan's monarchical coach"?

Ok, I promise this is my last one.

Betjeman’s Romeo

Miss Juliet Capulet, you are the sun,
With that sheen on your skin and your braids half undone!
I’m a fool on a cliff, and you give me a shove—
Is it any surprise that I’ve fallen in love?

Your daddy looked daggers all night at the dance,
While I hoped and I prayed for the tiniest glance
At your firm-muscled forearms and strenuous thighs.
Now you stand at the window, the sun in your eyes:

Though it’s quarter past midnight, you’d think it was noon,
And the greeny-faced, chilly-chaste, envious moon
Looks queasy as I am, your servant in livery
Dumbstruck and weak-kneed and lovery-shivery.

I wish I could be a glove warmed by your hand,
Or a shoe on your foot, or a wave on the sand
Between your strong toes as you kick me and run!
Miss Juliet Capulet, you are the sun.

[Mary Meriam]

Catherine, you'll be getting the bonus fiver, I feel sure of it! for your Bentjeman's Romeo. So delightful!

[Susan McLean]

Catherine, a "slow coach" is a stupid person, so I am punning on that in the phrase. Your Betjeman is very entertaining, and I think the combination of him with Romeo makes a lot more sense than my yoking of Browning with Lady Macbeth.

Susan

[John Whitworth]

Betjeman is usually a winner in these things. And here too I think.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Catherine! That's plain magic!

I'm betting on an arm-wrestle between you and Marion.

[Catherine Tufariello]

Susan--Ah, I hadn't heard that term before. Nicely done. I'm pleased you found Betjeman entertaining. And thank you too, Mary, John and Cally. Does each person get one entry? If so, I guess I'll go with Betjeman.

I think my favorite so far is Kipling as Iago, but I'm glad not to be Lucy. The quality of work on this forum such a treat.

[John Whitworth]

No. You can have as many as you like. Use aliases after the first one, but always give your correct name and address as well. Back in the mists of time, oh best beloved, a man was reputed to have won EVERY prize with a different alias

[George Simmers]

So which of the legendary names would that be? Martin Fagg? E.O.Parrott? Roger Woddis? Or was it Bill Greenwell?
In Hay-on-Wye earlier this year, I was prowling round the Honesty bookshop, where books are left to deteriorate in the Welsh drizzle, and came across a book in rotten condition. It was 'Bank Holidays on Parnassus' published in 1941 by Allan M. Laing, the Titan of the New Statesman competitions in the thirties.
Much of the topical stuff is inevitably dated, but there are some first-rate parodies, especially of Bernard Shaw, and some good clerihews:

Herr Hitler
refused to meet Emil Littler
and so never became
a pantomime dame.

Jack the Ripper
even as a nipper
had designs on the vital parts
of tarts.

[Jerome Betts]

Strewth! The competition is Titanically talented this time round so I hesitate to chance my arm among the battling giants . . .

Housman's Hamlet

Here, Wittenberg forsaken,
At Elsinore-On-Sea,
This question leaves all shaken –
To be, or not to be?
Should we endure, unwilling,
Time's arrows, whips and scorns,
Or else, self-killing,
Depart for unknown bourns?

Unknown? Let princes ponder
And plodding ploughmen too.
Up, down, or over yonder?
Pitch-black, or sunlit blue?
We fear, once six feet under,
A sleep by nightmares vexed –
Best stay, and wonder
Just what on earth comes next.

[Susan McLean]

I decided that Browning was too much of a stretch, so I have tried reworking it to Byron's "The Destruction of Sennacherib."

Byron’s Lady Macbeth (1.5.38-54)

The dear monarch trots up like a lamb to the fold,
With his mantle of purple and circlet of gold,
And the raven is hoarse as he croaks the approach
To my castle of Duncan, that royal slow coach.

So come, all you spirits that tend on things human,
Unsex me! I’ve had it with being a woman.
Extinguish compunction and stop up remorse
To allow my fell purpose to follow its course.

You murdering ministers, come to my call
And convert all the milk in my bosom to gall.
Pour your cruelty into me. Give me my fill,
So the eyes of the sleeper, once closed, will stay still.

Come, spirits of mischief! Come, thick night, as well,
In a cloak of dun smoke from the caverns of hell,
So the wound that it makes won’t be seen by my knife,
Nor the heavens cry “Hold!” as I take Duncan’s life.