Spectator Competition: Stockpiling

For Competition 3388 you were invited to submit a poem written from the point of view of a prepper.

While the topic of this challenge was a bit of a downer, the standard of your poems – inventive, sad and funny – was cheering. I was sorry not to be able to fit in Chris O’Carroll’s nod to the Beatles: ‘We’re the Ardent Preppers’ Chance Stockpile Band…’ and David Silverman’s twist on Masefield’s Cargoes:

Wrinkle-cream of Nivea on discount offer:

Packed, for life on sunny Exoplanet 59,

With box sets of Homeland,

Line of Duty,

Game of Thrones and Last of the Summer Wine.

There were near-misses, too, for Bill Greenwell and Nicholas Hodgson, but the £25 John Lewis vouchers go to those below.

When comes war and devastation (as foretold in Revelation)

Then most will weep and groan, but I’m no mug

When the bombs fall helter-skelter

I’ll be grinning in my shelter

Snug and smug

While the likes of you are dying, it’ll be so satisfying

To know that I’m surviving everyone.

Nuclear aftermath is viable

If you’ve stockpiles and a Bible

And a gun.

So I’m ready dressed in camo, lightly fingering my ammo

Prepared for all the carnage and the woe.

Midst the ruins and the looting,

I’ll be there and I’ll be shooting.

Way to go!

George Simmers

’Twill come when it will come was Shakespeare’s line,

though he meant Death not some apocalypse,

springing from Fate or rogue AI’s design,

or human error if a finger slips.

Best be prepared with water, tins of beans,

tin-opener (plus some spares), Swiss Army knife,

vitamin tablets, caseloads of sardines,

the bare necessities sustaining life.

But we are more than beasts. I’ll take my cue

from Desert Island Discs: Shakespeare, of course,

and Bible, then not too much Temps Perdu

but every Jeeves and Wooster for the sauce

of laughter, Archy and Mehitabel

(those true philosophers), and Ulysses,

its end something to aim for, before Hell

or lack of crosswords brings me to my knees.

D.A. Prince

I am the very model of a modern day survivalist,

My bunker’s so desirable I’ve had to start a waiting list,

Its freezer’s full of bagels by a Bake Off semi-finalist,

And if it needs defending I’m an automatic-rifleist;

I purify the water using iodine and filter kits,

I’ve got a well-stocked cellar if instead I want some gin-and-its,

I’ve piled up so much booze it takes all day if I recite a list –

I might spend Armageddon getting very gently Brahms & Liszt;

I monitor the frequencies to check if there are aliens,

I bought a load of jammers from some special ops Ukrainians,

I’ve infrared defences which will perforate noctambulists,

 And landmines which are guaranteed to marmalise detectorists;

My seed-bank’s full of veggies and some ancient strains of barley too –

I’ve got a DuoLingo app in case I need to parlez-voo –

I’m practical and focused – I’m a prepper, not a fantasist:

I am the very model of a modern day survivalist.

Tom Adam

Gonna hunker in me bunker

Wi’ me water, tins’n’guns

And me gasmasks – I’m no funker –

For when Armageddon comes

And a Chinese or a Russkie

Blows the world to smithereens,

I’ll be ’ere to tell ’em gruffly

What Survivalism means.

Gonna swelter in me shelter

Waitin’ on that bitter End,

Arms’n’groceries? I’ve a welter

’Ere arrayed for me to spend

As, outside, nucular winter

Keeps their prices surgin’ up.

I’ll be last, in this land hinter,

With a runnin’ over cup.

Adrian Fry

On Monday I bought a prep bunker –

The size of it made us all cheer,

I filled it with pasta, tinned veggies and rice –

Plus med kits, for end times are near.

And that bunker, it made me so thankful,

Its power supply, off-grid loo,

Some weapons. Huge batteries. A stash of dried soups.

We’ll learn to survive. We’ll make do.

We’ll batten down with hoarded foodstuffs,

Do workouts, store water, and weave,

While outside the world falls to civil unrest,

So poorly equipped, so naive.

Bring on the apocalypse fallout,

I’ve seed banks and games on my list,

And we’ll sail through doomsday in comfort,

I love it. At least we’ll exist.

Janine Beacham

No. 3391: Ode-worthy

You are invited to submit one of Keats’s odes rewritten as a sonnet or a limerick. Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by midday on 12 March.