[Jayne Osborn]

I'll be putting the comp number in the thread title, as well as the subject, in future, for those of you who like to keep impeccable records of your submissions, which I do, of course. (OK, so I'm lying... )


COMPETITION NO. 144

It seems increasingly fashionable to claim that the world is going to end in 2012. So a poem, please, not necessarily about 2012, with the title ‘The End of the World’. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries to ‘Competition 144’ by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG), fax (020 7436 8804) or email comps@theoldie.co.uk by 18 November. Don’t forget to include your postal address.

[Lance Levens]

Jayne, here's my shot:

It proved a sour apocalypse.
The trumpet's blast was limp and flat
and the flame had chapped the dragon's lips.
The party at the extras' flat

the night before left the lot
inflammable and puking on the set.
They caught a gaffer hawking pot
and when they cuffed him they were met

by a contingency of docs
for legal weed. Even the skies
were out of sorts; the cloudy flocks,
swirling like Turner, sighed their good-byes

and inked a contract for a flick
with F. F. Coppola. And last the peals
of laughter at some gofer's trick:
Seven bloody fish-scarfing seals!

[John Whitworth]

I am not sure whether this ditty works best with or without the last line. Opinions from Spherians?


The End of the World

This we indubitably know:
Our world shall burn to ash.
No child shall thrive, no plant shall grow,
We told you so. We told you so.
Hell’s teeth will surely gnash.

Alas, alas, our ways are crass
And they are waxing crasser
And presently will come to pass
The long predicted death of grass
From Baffin to Kinshasa.

The bitter draughts we have to drain
Will soon be here in crates:
Ozone depletion, acid rain,
All factored in to cause us pain
By the United States.

So Green Peace estimates.

[Susan d.S.]

With! I don't think you want it to end with such national specificity (says the Yankee).

Like this very much.

[Susan d.S.]

Some say the world will end with frost,
some say with fire.
I never have been partial to
predictions dark and dire.

I think the world will end with me,
I cannot see much further.
So what’s the point of worrying
oneself into a lather?

I’ll eat and feast and waste and leave
a footprint carbonate and bold.
I’ll eat red meat that cost the trees,
condition air too cold.

But when I’ve gone, let no man
say I haven’t done my share
for mother earth, for in my grave
worms shall be feeding there.


Interested if Spherians can think of a better rhyme pair than further/lather.
Does anything rhyme with "further"?

[John Whitworth]

Can't you say 'farther' instead. Then it rhymes better.

[Jerome Betts]

Maybe to keep the rhymes consistently monosyllabic you could recast the 'further' line as 'I can't see further on' and the 'lather line' as 'about when I'll be gone' ? Perhaps the first line of the last stanza could then be something like 'But six feet down, let no man'

[Susan d.S.]

Thanks John,"farther" is an immediate improvement. And thank you Jerome, for thinking with this. I will try this out. I at one point considered instead of further/lather, using "beyond/despond"---but I'm not sure how much despond is used as a noun these days, and it immediately sounds like more literary citation, as in "the slough of"---and I'm not sure that would be beneficial. "Beyond" also seems to dangle if in that place in the poem, and seems to want to be a noun ("the great beyond"), so I think I may have to stick with the off-rhyme.
Funny how nothing seems to rhyme with either farther or further...maybe father or Harvard or murder, if you are lispy or drunk enough.
Thanks!

[FOsen]

The man who had foretold collective fates
For decades in the square, for all to hear,
At some point wearied of predicting dates;
His sign now read, “The World Will End—Next Year.”
Which made some sense, at least, since he’d retired
A score of placards and revised his rants
As one by one, each doomsday had expired.
The local children heckled all his chants,
But Gran had made me swear I never would.
I’d sworn, but then I’d wanted to know why;
She'd reasons, she had said, and they were good.
I pressed her one day, as we passed him by;
The man was raving, loony, always wrong,
He was a public nuisance and a dunce.
“Aye, but,” she'd said, and hustled me along,
“He only has to get it right the once.”

Frank

[Donna English]

Originally Posted by Susan d.S.

Interested if Spherians can think of a better rhyme pair than further/lather.
Does anything rhyme with "further"?

I think the world will end with me,
I cannot see much further.
So what’s the point of worrying
oneself into a lather?



Susan, how about ?

I think the world will end with me
so spare me all your blather