COMPETITION

Patchwork quilt

Jaspistos THE MACALL AN

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IN COMPETITION NO. 2016 you were asked for an odd, rhyming poem consisting of single lines belonging to poems by well- known poets.

This form of composition (known as a `cento') was, according to Brewer, 'an art freely practised in the decadent days of Greece and Rome'. Ausonius, for instance, wrote a sexy nuptial idyll entirely made up of verses by Virgil. In our own day William Empson tried his hand, but I wouldn't have given him a prize this week. Any cento is bound to be odd, but the best are slightly dotty rather than totally mad. Many of you contrived happy couplets — 'About the woodlands I will go,/Talking of Michel- angelo' (Stanley J. Sharpless) and 'If I should die think only this of me,/That thus so cleanly I myself can free' (John Barker) — but the prizewinners (among whom Gordon Gwilliams and W.J. Webster are unlucky not to rank) are all distinguished by an ability to wander close to sense. They receive £25 each, and the bonus bottle of The Macallan The Malt Scotch whisky, the gift of our new patrons, goes to Philip Irwin.

THE MALT

What o'clock was it? What was the day of the week?

Do you remember an inn?

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

And how should I begin?

Who was your favourite? Who had a crush on you?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Police! Police! Is this the road to Kew?

Were it not better not to be?

Comforter, where, where is your comforting?

We die — does it matter when?

What of the lattermath to this hoar Spring?

Shall we be trotting home again? (Philip Irwin) Jenny kissed me when we met, Red as a rose is she, We lay beneath a spreading oak, My best beloved and me.

A long way out she thrust her chin But with the nicest care,

She sucked until her lips were sore And I was unaware.

She took me to her elfin grot, I heard her breathe my name, And I was filled with such delight, A subtle, sudden flame. (Andrew Brison) When I consider life, 'tis all a cheat, And all its varying rainbows die away. How Time is slipping underneath our feet, The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey, And gathering tears and tremblings of distress, Too many coffins bumping down the stair ... Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun, Two evils, monstrous either one apart: Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart!

A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear It is not nor it cannot come to good; And I pretend to find no meaning here. Death is no different whined at than withstood.

(Ray Kelley) How can I live without thee? how forgo?

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come? Who would be free themselves must strike the blow - Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum.

Drink, for you know not whence you came, and why, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; The evening is spread out against the sky A most unattractive old thing.

When you do take the means whereby I live The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone. Ask me no more: what answer should I give?

But answer came there none. (Paul Griffin) When maidens such as Hester die, When best employed and wanted most, The murmur of the mourning ghost Beguiles my heart, I know not why.

Yet soft to touch and sweet in view, She dwelt among th' untrodden ways. The sound is forced, the notes are few: How deepest wounds are given by praise! 'Tis true; but all too weakly said.

Thy face I only care to see, And strangled her; no pain felt she, And the old cow's dead, the old cow's dead.

(Noel Petty) While self-dependent power can time defy, Pale death, the grand physician, cures all pain; Now more than ever seems it rich to die. When shall I see the half-moon sink again?

There will be time to murder and create, I shall ebb out with them who homeward go And look upon myself and curse my fate: Hard words; harsh truth, a truth which many know.

0 struggling with the darkness all the night, This is a lonesome place for one like you. Ay, on the shores of darkness there is light: Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

(Cathy Benson)