[Jayne Osborn]

So, this time around we have to imagine that a creature with the body, tail and back legs of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle and an eagle's talons as its front feet – is real.
O…kay…!
I can safely predict that this will be another one I won’t win. Over to the rest of you…

Jayne

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

Competition No 201

The other day I saw an old carving of a man between two griffins. What if they were real? Please write a poem called ‘Meeting a Griffin’. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG) or email comps@theoldie.co.uk to ‘Competition No 201 by 1st April 2016. Don’t forget to include your postal address.

[Dave East]

I agree Jayne, I'll give it a go, but I doubt that I will be posting a winning entry to the Oldie!

[Ann Drysdale]

I look forward to the Oldie prompts because they're always original and head-tweaking. I like a challenge that makes folk think.

And no - I have no ideas as yet. But I'm... thinking.

[Nigel Mace]

Lister did it. Met one, I mean - and this is what he said.

GRIFFIN

Griffin, Griffin all alone,
Lying on a sun-warmed stone,
Speak to me of all your lore -
What, O what, are Griffins for?

Are they beautiful or not?
Are they cold or are they hot?
Tell me, Griffin, grave of phiz,
Tell me what a Griffin is!

Stretching out your shiny claws
As acknowledging applause,
One green eye that greenly winks -
Tell me what a Griffin thinks!

On your stone stretched out at ease,
Free from toil and free from fleas,
You appear like one apart -
Has a Griffin got a heart?

Every Griffin I have known
Lay along a sun-warmed stone
Like a teapot on a shelf,
Being Griffin by itself;

Curling ear and barbèd tongue,
Griffin neither old nor young,
Griffin never in a rage,
Griffin wise and Griffin sage;

Ever Griffin, never-true,
Nothing wounds or touches you;
Griffin murmurs No offence -
Has a Griffin got no sense?

Griffin-brother, kin of mine,
I have learned the countersign.
I will join you on your stone,
Both together, both alone;

Neither young and neither old,
Neither hot and neither cold;
Tell me, Griffin, tell once more -
What, O what, are Griffins for?

[Jayne Osborn]

Ah, that's lovely, Nigel. I haven't come across it before so thanks for posting it.

I'm thinking too... we have a local, very nice restaurant called The Griffin - Hmm, perhaps I need to be taken there for a meal, purely for research purposes, you understand.

[Gail White]

This is what Vachel Lindsay said about it:

The moon? It is a griffin's egg,
Hatching tomorrow night.
And how the little boys will watch
With shouting and delight
To see him break the shell and stretch
And creep across the sky.
The boys will laugh. The little girls,
I fear, may hide and cry.
Yet gentle will the griffin be,
Most decorous and fat,
And walk up to the milky way
And lap it like a cat.

[Rob Stuart]

Although we modern folk agree
That griffins are a fantasy,
Belief in which is patently absurd,

The dinosaurs we call today
The Protoceratopsidae
Were griffinish, if there is such a word.

Might superstitious ancient man,
When mining gold in Kazakhstan,
Have dug a fossil beak up and inferred

The find, combined with humeri
And shards of rib inhumed nearby,
Evinced some preternatural mammal-bird?

[Max Goodman]

Were I the Oldie's adjudicator, I probably wouldn't reward this gabmit, but I don't have a better idea, and H.G. Wells's Invisible Man was named Griffin.

When meeting Mr. Griffin, I
Felt just a tad bewildered by
His aspect, which was slightly dull;
In fact, he was invisible.

Although one doesn't wish to pry,
I found this strange; I asked him why,
And he admitted to be seen
He never had been very keen.

When hosting one so very shy,
Strict rules of etiquette apply.
Discreetly, so he shouldn't shrink
From me, I looked away--I think.

[Rob Stuart]

You never know, Max. Personally I thought your interpretation rather ingenious, and that last line is terrific.

[Max Goodman]

Thanks, Rob. We'll see what Ms. Castro thinks.