[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.