[Jayne Osborn]

No Spherean winners this month in the bouts-rimés, but congratulations to Bazza and Jerome for Hon Menshes. I wonder why the winner saw the need to put the end words in capitals; I always think it looks like SHOUTING when people do that. Davina's poem deftly used the words with less of a boozy theme, I thought.

(Next comp ‘Always dance in the kitchen’ on new thread.)

Jayne

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

In Competition no 194 you were asked for a poem with specified rhyme-words, which came, as some knew, from one of Wendy Cope’s Strugnell sonnets. Heaps of entries slewed across my doormat, and cheered if not inebriated me. I think the last rhyme, beer, was trickiest to accommodate. But Brian Wells did not hesitate, with his succession of crossword clues. A R Duncan-Jones, Basil Ransome-Davies, Max Ross, Jerome Betts, A Morton and Tony Harper were all on good form. So commiserations to them and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the quaffable bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Melody Drake-Lee.

He wasn’t one to hang his head in SHAME
Nor fret about the worries of TODAY.
His arrogance would always have the SAME
Effect on me – to down a BEAUJOLAIS,
Or, better still, drown in a pail of GIN
And tonic. It relieved my pain. But TWICE
I nearly died and knew that such a SIN
Would give him pleasure. So, the greater PRICE
Was to abstain completely. Therefore, COKE
Became my drink of choice. It was my FIRST
Revengeful action with another BLOKE
That freed me and enhanced my new-found THIRST
For Life! I sent an email, short, SINCERE:
‘Goodbye and keep the dog. You are small BEER’.
Melody Drake-Lee

Did I go gentle? Lord, it seems a shame
To think that alcohol stole my today.
For me, of course, all tipples were the same
From common ale to rich man’s Beaujolais.
I like a mug of rum and relished gin
And drank Champagne from buckets once or twice.
I never thought of vodka as a sin
And malts I would have bought at any price.
You’d never find this boyo drinking Coke
Unless it was enhanced with whisky first.
Yes, to be sure I was a cheery bloke
Whose single peccadillo was his thirst.
But when the Muse required I be sincere
I found that truth worked pretty well with beer.
Frank McDonald

xxxxxxxxxxxGertrude’s Effort
Hamlet, you lump of dolor, stop, for shame!
Stop snivelling! Summer begins today,
and so might you. Too long you’ve worn these same
rancid pajamas stained with Beaujolais
and squandered time with shirkers playing gin.
Was it for this we paid the fearsome price
of sending you to college? Such a sin
is bound to come and haunt you, once or twice.
But anyway, come on: here, have a Coke.
Cheer up! For after all, you’re not the first.
The old man’s dead, so live with it. Some bloke
dies every second. Death will slake its thirst.
I know you think me vile and insincere.
It’s so unfair! Perhaps you’d like a beer?
Alder Ellis

Pastimes of yesteryear: is it a shame
no one embroiders tablecloths today?
Is the world duller when all looks the same –
no lazy-daisies, pink as Beaujolais,
no satin-stitch that’s polished clear as gin?
Remember fretwork pipe-racks, varnished twice,
and match-stick models (fags weren’t called a sin),
and whittled toggles? presents without price.
Huddled around the hearth heaped high with coke
they’d knit, macramé, crochet, be the first
to try new patterns. God! It drives a bloke
mad to recall their home-grown hand-made thirst
for wonky novelty. Let’s be sincere
and give thanks that’s all gone – and home-brewed beer.
D A Prince

[Julie Steiner]

Alder Ellis is a Spherean! Huzzah!

[Jayne Osborn]

My sincere apologies to Alder. Congratulations on keeping up our track record!

[Julie Steiner]

I'd also suspect that the SHOUTING in the first sonnet was an editorial decision, not an authorial one, as a belt-and-suspenders measure telegraphing that the last word of each line was assigned (in case readers skipped the introductory explanation).

It certainly does interfere with my appreciation of the poem. Has this typography been done in any past bouts-rimés comps?

[RCL]

Did we forget the mention of Jerome Betts?

[Jayne Osborn]

See my first sentence, Ralph!

Julie,
They print the poems as they're submitted; it's Ms Drake-Lee who's shouting the end words of the bouts rimés at us. I've seen other people do it, also putting the words in italics, bold or underlining them, none of which is necessary; it's not the norm though.

[Brian Allgar]

... amd Andrew Duncan-Jones is a good (and helpful) friend of mine.

[Martin Parker]

Are we to believe that La Belle Castro has actually tried to "quaff" a Chambers dictionary? As an unsuccessful contestant on this occasion I would happily pay to see her try.

[Jayne Osborn]

Brian,
(I'm whispering...) So, are we to understand that Andrew Duncan-Jones is actually another you?

Martin,
Yes indeed, "with the quaffable bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary" is a decidedly odd phrase!

[Brian Allgar]

Jayne, he kindly lent me his name for what I thought was only my fourth-best entry (sniff, sniff).