[John Whitworth]

Spherians were particularly strong this week in the Take Two Competitions. Catherine TTufariello deservedly took the fiver with Bazza and Marion Shore in hot pursuit.

The new competition is an old competition somewhere else. I know because I entered it. Was it an Oldie?


No. 2672: Cheesy Feat
Thanks to Robert Booth for suggesting this one: 'The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.' You are invited to disprove G.K.Chesterton's assertion (16 lines max.). Please email entries, if possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 3 November.

[Max Goodman]

Wasn't the Chesterton quote the epigraph of William Cole's "What a Friend We Have in Cheeses!"? (Could that have been written for the Oldie comp?)

[ChrisGeorge]

Poets are too cheesed off
to write about cheese;
poets are too often
blue like Roquefort
or Stilton.

A holy man
could write
about Swiss
cheese though

-- that would be
Gouda!

[Roger Slater]

Need inspiration?

http://cheesepoet.wordpress.com/cheese-poetry/

[Orwn Acra]

Ondes Martenot

The Martians came to me in bed.
"The earth is decomposed," they said,
"Come to the moon, it's made of cheese."
I went with them. We sailed the seas
Of Nectar and Serenity
Where I met God and God met me.
We walked through Stilton hand in hand;
"I think," I said, "I understand."
My head was like an open spout,
My cerebellum dribbled out
And God replaced my brain with Brie.
"I'm free at last," I cried. "I'm free."

[Jerome Betts]

Orwn, this is memorably weird and wonderful, particularly the last four lines. I hope it does well.

Meanwhile, there is a speed-camera somewhere in Switzerland painted to resemble a giant slice of Emmenthal . . .

[Roger Slater]

Orwn, I like it! I promise I hadn't read yours before I wrote this one, which also mentions God and Brie:


CHEESE

Although I never cared for life
and found each day depressing,
and always thought the grave would be
a mercy and a blessing
wherein I'd say good riddance to
the world, and it to me,
to my surprise, I'm dead and yet
still hankering for Brie.

Oh God, if in your mercy you
could give me one last smear of it,
I'd look upon oblivion
without the slightest fear of it.
In short, before you wipe away
the person I call Me,
can't you see your way to give
me one more taste of Brie?

[Roger Slater]

Say Cheese

"Say 'cheese,'" he cries before he snaps
my picture, as if I'll
be forced thereby to raise my cheeks
into a cheerful smile.

And yet, though I say cheese as told,
somehow my cheeks stay down,
and sure enough my portrait shows
a stubborn, solemn frown.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Cheese

I think that I shall never seize
A glass of red without some cheese,

A cheese to please the swilling throat
Like chèvre from a mountain goat.

When I dine out I always get a
Salad tossed with Grecian fetta

Round since man first tilled the soil,
The perfect pal for olive oil.

And if you want your love to stay,
Cut the curd, release the whey,

For wine and verse beneath the trees
Won’t pin her down without some cheese.

[Catherine Tufariello]

What a fun challenge! These all had me smiling. Cally, I love your Kilmer pastiche.