The Oldie "Dry and Wet' results. *A win for John*
Congratulations to John for another Oldie win, and also to Brian and Jerome for Hon Menshes. Well done, gentlemen!
I'm not sure why the last line of Maureen Bowden's poem begins with a capital, or why 'cockney' isn't capitalised in Barbara Smoker's - but that's how they both appear in the magazine. I'm only the scribe.
(Next month's comp is a prose one; see new thread)
Jayne
The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro
In Competition No 154 you were invited to write a poem called ‘Dry and Wet’, on one aspect of water. Very refreshing they were too. David Hotton advised us to sing his poem with lots of action: ‘Try Barley, Potash, Lavender or Rose, / To heal your humours or to please your nose.’ Tony Underwood gave sound advice on the mixing of cement and sand, and D A Prince wrote movingly of hydro-electrics.
But all this water in the brain made some of you splash out on frothy rhymes, which I enjoyed enormously. Brian Allgar’s ingenious finale rhymed ‘Pecorino Sardo’, ‘Brigitte Bardot’, ‘dismal fado’ and ‘dry amontillado’. Jerome Betts went great guns all the way, rhyming ‘hypertrophia’ and ‘kniphofia’ (red hot poker to you) and bombing into the deep end with the rhyme ‘of the Oval’ and ‘Michael Gove’ll’. So commiserations to them and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, and, since I am such a sucker for rhyme and rhythm, extra praise to Maureen Bowden with her less regular poem, with which she wins the bonus prize of a Chamber’s Biographical Dictionary.
I turn and tug my sister’s shimmering surf
towards the shore.
I turn the tide and hide behind rain-sated cloud,
as her proud oceans flow at my beck and call.
I turn my eye on ice cap and on cataract,
see Niagara fall, tsunami rise.
She slakes her thirst
while I
hang high and dry
In the night sky.
Maureen Bowden
After the rain, the soft, incessant rain,
The squash, the squelch, the clog, the quag, the wallow,
The slithery, sly insistence of the drain,
The earth agape to slobber and to swallow,
The days and days of dripping, drooping, drivelling,
After the rain, the hydroptic earth is sweeter,
To sniff, to smell, to touch, to feel, to frivol in,
Sweeter than ever, cleverer and neater.
After the rain my cats are out at last,
High stepping, curiously fastidious;
An erupting froglet leaves them both aghast,
(What’s this? Good Heavens! Horrible! Poor us!)
They scuttle back indoors, beset with fears,
And, startled by the brave new world abroad,
Sleep furiously, tight-curled, with pointy ears,
Until normality shall be restored.
John Whitworth
‘Dry those tears,’ she said. ‘A kiss will make it
Better. Things get broke, but this one we can mend.
We’ll go to Smith’s and get some good strong glue,
As soon as we’ve got half a crown to spend.’
‘Don’t be so wet,’ she snarled. ‘For God’s sake, pull
Yourself together. You’re not the only one
To lose a job. You’ll lose a wife as well,
Unless you pull your socks up, honey bun.’
‘Grandpa, lift me up. Mum will be so cross
If we go home with my new shoes all wet.’
‘Don’t worry, pet. We’ll give her something dry
To keep her sweet. A nice white wine, some anisette.’
The rain fell fitfully into the trench
Wherein the mid-range, pinewood coffin lay.
The mourners clustered, tearful or dry-eyed.
At times the sun appeared; an average day.
Tony Harper
‘See me finger’s wet. See me finger’s dry,
Cut me froat if I ever tell a lie!’
Thus ran the cockney pledge of truth
We chanted in our pre-war youth –
With spittle, not a sacred book,
No godhead called upon to look
In judgement on our tribal cult,
To guarantee a fair result
In any game coerced to play
At diktat of the dawning day:
Just spitting on one’s own forefinger
And wiping it, to let it linger
Across one’s suicidal throat,
Was potent as a courtroom oath
Or medieval inquisition,
Binding us in sacred submission.
Barbara Smoker
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