COMPETITION

Dead, stolen or strayed

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1595 you were asked for a poem elegising the death or dis- appearance of a pet.

In announcing the competition, I added the words 'cats and dogs excepted', but the Grauniad gremlin puckishly made the last word 'expected'. All animals were there- fore accepted. Having just had to part with an adopted tortoise (how do you tell the sex?) in the Peloponnese, I was in a sympathetic judging frame of mind. Poets have been good on pets — Cowper with his hare, Tiney, Gray with Selima, the cat `drowned in a tub of gold fishes', and of course Patrick Barrington, who, when he was up at Trinity, had a duck-billed platy- pus that was honoured as Dame Vera and `retired, a lonely figure, to lay eggs at Bordighera'. I received elegies on an albi- no mouse called Sir Galahad, Neil, a newt, Fanshaw, a cock, Shelob, a spider, Frank, a flea, a stick insect going by the name of Orlando, and some charming Latin hende- casyllables on the demise of Catullus's mother's parrot. The winners printed be- low (by pure chance cats and dogs end up

excepted) take £15 each, and the bonus bottle of Cognac Otard VSOP, kindly presented by the Château de Cognac, goes to Roger Jeffreys, who amusingly made use of the metre of Catullus's sparrow poem.

Mourn, great Prince, and lament, ye lesser Windsors, Weep, good people who care for things impor- tant: My sweet girl's axolotl's handed in his Dinner-pail. What a loss to conservation!

Nice wee bloke he was, wet and white and squirmy, Waved pink gills in the bath and grazed her earlobes, Knew her inwardness, like a friendly foetus. Now he's gone on a dark unpleasant journey Through down-pipes of a 'one-way valve' con- struction.

What a shame! Oh, you wretched axolotl! Thanks to you, she is feeling quite frustrated.

(Roger Jeffreys) Immortalise a vanished pet With 'cats and dogs expected'?

I fancy, Sir, your printer let You down. You typed 'excepted'?

If so, your fiat must exclude Patch, Rover, Spot and Randy, And twenty kittens who have mewed To `Tibbles', 'Fluff' and 'Sandy'.

Thus guided by your feline ban And canine interdiction One pet above all others can In verse deserve depiction.

And she, prick-eared, sweet-tempered, wise, Strong romper, brindle-coated, Was Frisk, the goat with merry eyes To whom we were devoted. (John Twells) Shot from your shoulder, was he, in a brawl Somewhere in the Tortugas, and he's dead? You'll miss him, Silver; that attentive head Cocked to one side to listen to us all And interrupting with that eldritch call, `Pieces of eight'. We used to live in dread

That he could hear our thoughts, not what we said, And you could use him like a crystal ball.

You called him Captain Flint, yet I have heard Your quiet voice upon the starlit deck That whispered 'Pretty Polly', 'Pretty Bird', And heard his chuckle as your ear he'd peck, And as the stars diminished and grew pale Saw you content beneath the swelling sail.

(D. Shepherd)

He stole my mynah, now I'm left In utter desolation, Bereft of all those chirruped tunes And mimicked conversation.

But that's not all: a curse upon That dastardly marauder - My treasured pet was also my Invaluable recorder; I reminisced to him for hours About my past transgressions.

God, how bitterly I rue Those self-revealing sessions!

For any moment now I fear To lift my phone and find, That I am talking to a thief With blackmail on his mind.

(Philip A. Nicholson)

When a great chameleon dies There's happiness amongst the flies; But I am sad, I've lost my George Who on the household pests did gorge.

He had the most amazing hues Acid yellow, startling blues.

He also had some subtler tints When resting on a piece of chintz.

His independent, swivelling eyes Would watch for unsuspecting flies; Then, with a tongue which seemed fantastic (It stretched so far like real elastic), He caught and promptly pulled them in With just a hint of reptile grin. Alack, alas, my George is gone, My camouflaged chameleon. (Sid Field)