COMPETITION

Title given

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1407 you were in- vited to write a poem to fit the title 'Sonnet found in a Deserted Mad-House'.

The anonymous gem, which I promised to quote, goes:

Oh that my soul a marrow-bone might seize! For the old egg of my desire is broken, Spilled is the pearly white and spilled the yolk, and

As the mild melancholy contents grease My path the shorn lamb baas like bumblebees. Time's trashy purse is as a taken token Or like a thrilling recitation, spoken By mournful mouths filled full of mirth and

cheese.

And yet, why should I clasp the earthful urn? Or find the frittered fig that felt the fast? Or choose to chase the cheese around the churn?

Or swallow any pill from out the past? Ali no, Love, not while your hot kisses burn Like a potato riding on the blast.

It's remarkably hard to write successful nonsense or 'loony' poems. One of the earliest examples is 'A Non-Sequitur' by Richard Corbet (1582-1635), who finds a Place in the Oxford Dictionary of Quota- tions but is, mysteriously, denied one in both the old Oxford Companion to English Literature and the newish Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature.

The rustie thread Begins to bleed And cobwebs elbows itches, The putrid skies Eat mulsacke pies Backed up in logick breeches . .

A bishop who could write that deserves to be recorded.

You treated the title with a rich variety of mood and interpretation. Jermyn 'Thyn- ne, George Moor, Denis Clarke, Peter Norman and Phyllida Garth get special mentions in an especially talented field. The winners printed below have £9 each, and the bonus bottle of Champagne Victor Canard (Brut), presented by The John Milroy Soho Wine Mart, 3 Greek Street, London Wi, goes to Andrew Warden.

Blood dries. Death dies. Revenge is sweet. My wife Had five fat fingers on each hand, and Fate Is likewise pentadactyl; the stellate, Arcanely wrought pentangle that my knife Carved on the Monument to Carnal Strife Sends forth unearthly power. The hour is late And I am left alone to contemplate That old quinquivalent conundrum, Life.

Life, and of course, its counterpart, Release. Say not I slew her, merely that she sleeps. These are the five conditions of the dance: Pain, ecstasy, aggression, joy and trance, All states which proper medication keeps At bay. Until, of course, they call the police.

(Andrew Warden) The inmates all were mad, by definition: Deranged, deluded, paranoid — although Still well enough to plot the overthrow And liquidation of the Chief Physician. The staff began to share the same ambition. Insanity can spread, take root and grow. When therapists and nurses joined the Foe The house became a cauldron of sedition.

As Chief, I held the poison-cupboard key.

I quickly foiled the plot with heroin

And prussic acid in their morning tea.

The well is their unhallowed tomb of sin.

And now, it's back to Paradise for me:

We could meet, if I chose to let you in.

(Peter Wingate) The corridors and chambers silent lie, And only curious tourists stand and stare.

They wonder at the shame of times gone by, The bedlam and the mayhem that was there.

No longer do the small hours ring with cries Of tortured souls, condemned for evermore To dwell in realms of fantasy and lies, Each day to grow more lunatic than before.

Gone is the woman who thinks she's a saint, The man with Welsh invective on his lips; Gone are the ancient methods of restraint — The guillotine, the closure and the whips.

Oh, passer-by, to see this, would you guess That Parliament has gone into recess?

(John Dean) Here among bars of iron and chocolate I am self-banished from the human race.

I ran too fast too far, and have lost face.

The clothes-horse rears to trample on my plate, And all around the gritty cogs of fate Are grinding without pause. The world began Too suddenly. We need a jerry-can Of oil in here before it is too late.

Hold the sheet taut and pull it by the heels, They needle me with noises and rejection; There's company and clichés with the meals, And always oversight and introspection. When I was setting off to save the seals They called me back for inner ear inspection.

(Ginger Jelinek) The rooms are spotless; every day the sheets Are changeable, and brooms with silken bristles Come swishing through in whispers. Next Door whistles In Portuguese! The manager repeats To each complaint, he's simply mortified.

'I'm mortified, I'm mortified,' he says.

(He wears a most attractive little fez, Which surely isn't sensible outside.) But dear! what luxury! the place is charming, Superior to the most exotic spa.

The porters, not the least bit lah-di-dah, Are splendid: in their white coats, so disarming! The bill will be colossal when it's added — Don't tell Papa, but — bliss! — the walls are padded! (Berni Wellgell) After the house had changed its use once more.

Almost each month, persons of taste and feeling Would reverently pace the parquet floor And gather to admire the painted ceiling (The whole effect so tactfully restored!').

One of them paused beside a sewing-table In what had once been called the Middle Ward And found it, like a message in a fable, Petrarchan, at a glance (ABBA Twice, then the three CD's); the rhymes alone — 'Away away away away away Gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone' — Filling each line. The sonnet was unsigned, In ornamental script and underlined. (M. R. Macintyre)