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Most ladies, like Muffet, are convinced they will snuff it
If a spider comes in their vicinity,
From which they determine a spider is vermin
And damn it from here to infinity.
Myself, I confess it, I frequently bless it,
This outcome of lengthy mutations;
Like Robert the Bruce, I’ve discovered a use
For a creature of purpose and patience.
I bought from a vet and keep as a pet
A specimen large, black, and hairy,
Who is friendly and kind, and daily I find,
Has a number of functions that vary.
With ladies who boss me or wilfully cross me,
He turns their aggression to choking,
While ladies I fancy, like Judy and Nancy,
Throw their arms round my neck, and need stroking.
Paul Griffin
What’s in a name? For you, I fear, too much:
Slug is a word one would not give to such
As fill the eager bosom with delight.
But why? You make your bashful way by night
As though you know your presence might offend
Those gardeners who would bring about your end.
But when by day — too rarely — you are seen,
Your body shimmers with a subtle sheen,
In mottled browns, pale golds and bronzes dressed,
As iridescent as the starling’s breast.
In movement, too, your muscles pulse and purse
More fluidly than Mr Universe.
No Magic Roundabout grants you a ride:
The vulgar taste prefers shells worn outside.
But bear your horns with pride: such judgment errs.
Your beauties are reserved for connoisseurs.
Noel Petty
The water closet may not be
The loveliest thing the eye can see,
But what a truly welcome sight
When stomachs churn at dead of night.
The white and shining porcelain bowl
Surrounds the deep mysterious hole
Where sparkling, swirling waters send
The rank detritus round the bend.
Though plastics prosper, nought can beat
The comfort of the wooden seat.
Mahogany is best to bear
The travails of the derrière.
Praise be, we ladies never knew
The problems of the bourdaloue.
To Crapper, Armitage and Shanks
I tender my eternal thanks.
Maureen Melvin
Spaghetti Junction seldom has
Bouquets to mark its beauty, as
This is for cognoscenti, who
Appreciate the larger view.
Its coils are airy serpents turned
Concrete parabola — those learned
In mathematics marvel at
Equations visible, and that
Theory and form can so combine
In sinuous, supple, man-made line.
Under its thirty acres thrive
Small wildlife, missed by those who drive
Its eighteen routes of tarmac space
Indifferent to time or place,
Or how this columned giant fist is
An icon of the vibrant Sixties.
D.A. Prince
Evolved perfection of beak and muscle and claw,
Of powerful wing and expertly sighted eye,
A manifestation of Nature’s proven law:
For the fit to survive the old and the weak must die.
There’s more to wonder at, more that we must admire
As we watch the vultures hover on thermals, till
They sense the approach of death, first circle higher,
Then drop instinctively straight upon the kill.
At the Towers of Silence, on Africa’s ruthless plain,
In sequels to slaughter, to plague, to drought, to flood,
They know no tenderness, deaths are all the same:
Their means of survival, their patient reward of food.
The world needs scavengers, cleaners, finishing off
The cycle of birth and growth that is Nature’s goal;
These are not times to forget their worth or to scoff
At vultures, hooded and bent on their god-given role.
Alanna Blake
You may think it ugly, a nightmare to drive,
But I’ll give you a toast to the M25.
The king of all roads, it will take you around
The city of London, the jewel in its crown.
Consider the villages found to each side,
Pratts Bottom and Stubbers, Crooked Mile or Cockhide,
Fiddlers Hamlet and Brambles, Dancers Hill or Rooks Nest,
But Titsey and Catlips are surely the best.
Then the crown is inlaid with historical gems,
Magna Carta was signed over there by the Thames,
From Windsor to Waltham the Normans held sway
Building castles and abbeys still with us today.
Where St Albans now stands the Romans took flight
When Boudicca sacked the old town in the night,
While Churchill at Chartwell in spirit lives still,
And are those still Spitfires around Biggin Hill?
Tim Raikes
No. 2395: Cantrip
In other words, a witch’s spell. You are invited to write a rhymed one (maximum 16 lines) to bring someone or something either good or ill. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2395’ by 2 June.
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