[John Whitworth]

Lots of us got hon mensh: Jerome Betts, Jayne Osborne, Chris O'Carroll and me. Never mind. We'll all win another time and there were, after all, only four winners. One of them was Frank Osen. Good piece! Good win!

Competition No 133. Other people's spare rooms always seem more interesting - or more creepy. So a poem called The Spare Room, please, in which something happens. Maximum 16 lines

Entries to Competition No 133 by email comps@theoldie.co.uk by 14 January

[John Whitworth]

I've got one of these. I have a tabloid imagination, obsessed with sex and violence.


The Spare Room

Ascend the winding second stair
To find the room we call the spare.

It’s very cold and very bare,
A bed, a cupboard and a chair,

And something rotten in the air,
A touch of evil rich and rare,

A quality of deep despair
In spirits deft and debonair,

The rent boys of the millionaire,
Their brass and leather underwear,

Their corpses shaved of pubic hair,
Each penis a boutonniere,

It’s all a pretty rum affair,
A secret none of us can share,

A whiff of some satanic prayer.
Blow out the candle if you dare.