COMPETITION

No. 611: Keeping it dark

Competitors are asked to submit a job appli- cation by a recently unseated MP who, while outlining his qualifications, is careful to con- ceal the fact that he gained them in the House of Commons (eg, a Pavlovian reaction to bells). Limit 100 words. Entries, marked 'Competition No. 611', by 10 July.

No. 608: The winners

Charles Seaton reports: Asked to provide a hippy's poem to his lady, competitors res- ponded nobly. Indeed 'Neil E. Ahippy' sent in (I quote) 'a genuine hippy poem, though

I haven't shown her yet,' and J. S. B. Adams provided me with a glossary of terms used in his selection of poems. (Being a square,! was glad of it before I finished going through the entries.) The sonnets, though invited, were not generally successful—hippies don't seem to harmonise with the sonnet form—though C. A. McIvor wins two guineas for his: hell man i find it hard enough to call you man but that's the way we talk for we don't like to make our feelings plain and all

i mean is that your femininity is (like my sonnet) pitched in a low key (you'd hardly know it was Spenserian) and i've heard people say (of you) why she has all the outward favours of a man (conceit enough) and since the world began lovers (however dressed) have gone in pairs and let their love fulfil its destined span separate from the world and its affairs we'll face the future, be it neer so hard sustained by Heidegger and Kierkegaard.

The mdnages, when enlarged upon, were generally revoltingly old-fashioned—just he and she affairs—relieved, however, by one foursome (which wins a prize of three guineas) and one fivesome (which doesn't). Here's the foursome: Drop out with me and be my Chicks And we will take a Trip, for kicks; I dig you, like, the three of you, And that's the gas, I really do.

We'll all shack-up in someone's pad, Our love and pot we'll share like mad, Behind locked doors so that no Fas- cist scum can pry or Oldies gas.

,... Each one each other's Chick will lay; We'll Love and Share, the Flower Way; And only stop to have our fix; So live with me and be our Chicks.

Adam Khan The locales varied, too:' Come live with me. get in the groove, Live off the land and we shall prove That seaside lays and sands and parks Are just the places for our larks.

P. W. R. Foot By day we'll demonstrate our rights And you and I can spend our nights At Piccadilly loo. P. H. O'Hanlon And even hippies can't entirely get away from the old themes:

Move it, Baby, have a ball.

Soon the daisies we'll be shovin', - Join the psychedelic Love-In- All too soon the Bomb will fall. F. Galway Most competitors took the invitation to play variations on 'Come live with me' and you may judge how well they did it from the three last prizewinners:

Come doss with me and dig my pad, Renounce the uptight and the trad: Be cool and, squatting on thy ass, Inhale with me a joint of grass.

Shack up with me and be a bum: I'm middle-class, my chick, so Mum And Dad won't let me feel the pinch Of real hunger—it's a cinch!

Freak out: there's joy for cats who lead The life of flower and bell and bead. Together let's gatecrash, cherie, The life a la Haight.Ashbury.

Martin Fagg

Come, share my pad and live with me, And we'll be beautiful and free. Following the Guru's laws

I will match my vibes with yours.

And I will buy—if I've the bread— A band for your dishevelled head, A muslin robe, a set of beads, Everything for your simple needs.

And we will sit down in the street Braving the fuzz's brutal feet, Squatting together, arm in arm, In silent protest on Vietnam.

Or we will march, and we will shout 'Ho, Ho Chi Minh!' and 'Out, out, out!' Forget the grey world! Leave your Dad! Come, live with me, and share my pad!

E. P. Heriz-Smith shack up with me and be my chick and we'll get high on every kick like marijuana, LSD

and heroin, to name but three; we'll do what every hippy does like blow our minds by baiting fuzz; we'll laugh at all those dreary cats in pin-stripe suits and bowler hats who seem to think that life was meant for earning bread to pay the rent; we'll be so beautiful and free the world will envy you and me.

but when these pleasures start to fade, when evening comes, and you've been laid, you'll have to blow, you can't stay late— my wife gets home from work at eight.

Brian Allgar

They win three guineas each, and there are commendations for N. Birkbeck, William Hodsdon, David Cohen, J. M. Crooks, Hilary Temple and N. J. Rock.