[John Whitworth]

Bazza won the fiver for 'In Two Minds' with one of the funniest things I have ever read here. If you missed it then don't miss it now. Janet Kenny, our most noted presence down under in this regard also deservedly won money. Bill Greenwell and my alter Ego, Fergus of the Brazen Cars, got Hon Mensh.

The new competition is (I predict) a runner, and I can't see any Brit bias here except a sideways reference to Alan Sillitoe's novel (and Albert Finney's film) 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'.

No. 2667: Weekending
You are invited to submit a reflection in verse on Sunday morning (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 29 September.

[basil ransome-davies]

Suffering succotash! I despair. How could you beat Wallace Stevens & Kris Kristofferson?

[John Whitworth]

I think a dose of the bleeding obvious might not come amiss. I have to confess that some (though not all) of this is old stuff. Still, it goes with a swing. Will Lucy know what a kludgie is, or should I tell her?

Sunday Morning

Saturday night the booze slipped down like silk,
And now? By God, you wish you’d stuck to milk,
When what went down so smooth comes up so smelly.
Your mouth's a rodent's tomb, your brain a jelly,
Both eyes gummed shut. That’s good, my chickadee.
You feel. You taste. Do you really want to see
The purpled eye, the gashes on your face,
The horrid signs of how you trashed the place,
The broken window frame, the shards of glass
(You’ll bear the scars for ever on your arse),
Blood on the carpet, vomit in the kludgie,
The mangled corpse of Auntie Ethel’s budgie,
Body secretions puddled by the bed?
Of course you don’t. Much better to be dead,
To cease upon a midnight with no pain,
And never look at alcohol again.

[Susan d.S.]

ok, what's a kludgie?

I especially like the ending, I never until now realized how much Ode to a Nightingale could well describe a hangover.

The only line that seemed to jar is line 4. Is the brain really in "shock," which suggests a kind of alertness, or dull (Keats's word!) or something else? "your mouth a pit of bile" scans a bit awkwardly. Perhaps keep the bile but change the formulation or the syntax.

Good luck!

[Roger Slater]

I'll leave this up, but a revision appears a few posts down.

SUNDAY

Saying Let it be all week
was hard enough to test
the strength of the Omnipotent,
and so God took a rest

when Sunday came, and good for him,
it's nothing I begrudge him,
but when the second Monday came
I couldn't help but judge him:

What would he create today?
The Sabbath day had ended.
But God declared his day of rest
forevermore extended.

I guess the rest of us will rest
as long a God does, one day,
but as we live and breathe we get
this brief and mortal Sunday.

[Donna English]

John, that was a rough night! Funny stuff!

Roger, that one bites--in a very good way!




If only I’d have taken time to pitch
the latest Times that I’d already read.
If only I’d have overcome the itch
to sleep while puffing on that cigarette in bed.

[George Simmers]

A good subject. In my lifetime, nothing has changed as much as the British Sunday. I remember the blank dreariness of Sunday streets in the fifties (though at home there was Sunday roast and Educating Archie).

In 1982, in the early days of the microchip revolution, Sunday was the subject of a New Statesman comp, and I won a few quid with this:

Sunday Morning, 1982

While still he sleeps, her fingertips
Enjoy a swift and crafty run
Above the subtle membrane of
Their Sinclair ZX-81.

But soon he signals he's awake
And drops a raunchy hint or two
That this would be a smashing time
To watch his hired Electric Blue.

Which has to be switched off, of course,
When Kirk returns from Daddy James
(Spoilt as usual) with cassettes
Of Astro-Blast and Glob-Man games.

And as he zaps the aliens,
She wonders what folk did before,
With just each other to absorb
Their thoughts, and zeal for love, and war.

These days, Sunday seems to be the day when kids are dragged round out-of-town shopping centres, bribed by the promise of a Big Mac. Maybe there's a poem of some sort in that.

[Roger Slater]

A revision:


SUNDAY

Six days saying Let it be!
Was so hard that it tested
The strength of the Omnipotent,
And so he stopped and rested

When Sunday came. And good for him!
It's nothing I'd begrudge him.
But when the second Monday came,
The angels could not budge him.

"What will you create today?"
They asked. "The Sabbath's ended."
But God declared his day of rest
Forevermore extended.

I guess the rest of us will rest
As long a God does, one day,
But while we're living all we get
Is brief and mortal Sunday.

[John Whitworth]

Susan, I have altered the line, stealing from Kingsley Amis as I go. As for kludgies, well here is an alternative couplet if the word really is too regional:

Blood on the carpet, vomit in the loo,
The corpse of Auntie Edna's cockatoo,

I am sorry to lose the dead budgie, however.

[Susan d.S.]

Well, I looked up kludgie and I think others can too. Also sort of sorry to see the budgie go.

Because of your closing lines, I now think differently about ""full throated ease"

Susan