[John Whitworth]

Ah poetry!
You are invited to submit a poem on the horrors of a reunion dinner (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 26 February.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Still groggy, my brother-in-law
Is amazed at the sight that he saw,
When the love of his life
Decked his second ex-wife
With a swift uppercut to her jaw.

On my rug a small mountain of feces
I suspect is my uncle Maurice’s;
Though he swears that this log
Had been laid by a dog
Or a similar non-human species.

While the dinner was worthy of Nero,
And as host I’ve been hailed as a hero,
The arrests numbered two;
Billie-Bob, Bobbie-Sue;
And fatalities (luckily) zero.

[Jerome Betts]

Ingenious interpretation, Douglas. Tense clash with 'swears . . .had been'? Maybe something like 'is the work of a dog'? 'Subhuman' seems a bit hard on dogs? 'non-human'?

[Douglas G. Brown]

Jerome,
Thanks for your observation. Yes, I was being too hard on the innocent dog, who has been blamed for boorish human behavior. I've changed it to non-human.
An old-time commercial fisherman (who I knew when I was about 10 years old) used the expression "laying a log" an an euphemism for the defecation process, when children or ladies were within earshot. I haven't heard it said for decades, but still recall how it irritated his wife.

[Graham King]

Why’d I enter? No dissenter to their pleasantries unmeant or
Vacuous dare any serious thinking bring;
Some who banter, some who rant or (piercing as a bagpipe’s chanter)
Gush: these parasites, who round each table cling!

She's a couturier haughty (sixty-plus) who dresses naughty
But thinks figures should be stick-like and austere;
Yet while oddities of fashion are her prize perennial passion,
Alcohol as runner-up seems very near.

He is “Something in the City” where he says he's sitting pretty
(Like that doxy so adoring by his side);
But his boasting as we’re toasting bodes he’s coasting for a roasting:
When the market notes his mark-up, woe betide!

Some are boring, others snoring; most have manners I'm deploring
(I alone, it seems, have taste or etiquette);
High-billed bland scarce-heated menu; an ill-planned and foetid venue -
This must be our worst reunion dinner yet!

[basil ransome-davies]

'Horrors'? What horrors? I shall have to invent madly here. I've always avoided reunion dinners the way I avoid stag parties. Too ghastly. Except once. And that was a brilliant occasion.

[John Whitworth]

I've tried to write something but it's all rather depressing. We were young and hopeful and now we're old and hopeless. Sod that. I think Douglas showed the way to go. Or one way. So...

Dracula's Reunion Dinner

It's rough for ghouls. It's tough for trolls.
My wives are getting quite distraught.
Virgins are rare so money's short.
The bloodbank's down to scarce a quart
And that belongs to me.

We've had to do without the Rolls
And trundle out the bullock cart
Complete with pitchfork waving proles
And desolate, tormented souls
Who do it all for free.

When troubles come they come in shoals:
The Castle isn't worth a fart;
My lawns have been destroyed by moles;
Cook's off her head; things fall apart;
And dinner's burnt to buggery.
Let's have a cup of tea.

[Graham King]

He had been away for years -
(‘In jail,’ guessed few; more, ‘Dead and gone’) -
For certain, not expected back by most!
They had thought the coast was clear,
That leering throng of hangers-on;
He (like his wife) was not their willing host.

Back, unknown, he shot one arrow -
Then those feasters’ faces paled,
For none of them could equal that famed feat -
Twelve bronze axehead-holes were narrow!
Thoughts of wrath and death assailed;
His shot had been both powerful and neat.

Their rout was swift and bloody
As the honour was defended
Of Penelope. Odysseus, he
Those suitors’ leeching ended.

[basil ransome-davies]

I curse this one. I've spent hours getting it wrong. I think John has pointed the way: forget about the reunion dinner, just be bloody funny.

[Adrian Fry]

There's a reunion dinner anecdote in Brian Sewell's autobiography. Dining with former schoolmates in middle age, he finds most are married and homophobic. This provokes him to point out the room that there's not a man in the place he hadn't slept with in adolescence. Silence. Exit Mr Sewell, pursued by glares.

Now, if only I could do a rhyming version. . .