COMPETITION

Poetic ellipse

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 2115 you were invited to write an 'Ode to a Rugby Ball'. While you were tinkering with your odes indoors, the newly appointed bard of the Wakefield Wildcats, Mr 1Casatkin, was out there in the cold, on the touchline, with notepad and pen, in his own words, 'recording the most significant tries, the best kicks'. He describes his new role in the game as his 'Holy Grail', at the same time vowing `to apply semiotics to the cultural struggle of northern England'. The best of Yorkshire luck to you, lad.

0 grant my prayer, adored of hosts, Ball-god from whom nought is concealed: Please stop them moving the goal-posts, Please level out the playing field.

So sang, wittily but not very `odically', Hugh Munro, one of several good runners who almost touched down. The prizewin- ners, printed below, take 125 each, and The Macallan Single Malt Highland Scotch whisky goes to Godfrey Bullard. A happy Christmas to all of you.

As sages have probably stated, God's earliest instinct was sound; The world thus created, if somewhat oblated, Was still recognisably round.

But a sphere, be it ever so sprightly, Falls flat by your perfect ellipse, Which bounces so brightly, manoeuvring lightly In spirals, ascensions and flips.

You fly, like the aerial creatures,

Yet always to earth you return; Though lacking in features, your contours may teach us Far more than a classical urn: A symbol of quest, an obsession In nick, scrummage, line-out and maul; Men's highest expression, for total possession Of you is the goal of them all.

(Godfrey Bullard) Peace attend you, cherished fruit Of man's designs for hand and boot, Partner of Lomu's might

And Guscott's shimmying flight.

What trashy sphere of blank, unmeaning face Can know the arc, the quintessential grace Your tipped perfection boasts Gliding between the lofty posts?

This Christmas time my dearest wish Is turkey on an oval dish And pudding with a soul From elongated bowl.

Then, as dusk falls, I'll muse how, even above, As if the turning heavens proclaimed their love, The planets' yearly trips Are no mere circling, but ellipse.

(Chris Tingley) After a try, when I last donned my strip, No heap of sand was brought, no plastic mound,

But someone - often I - lay on the ground And held the ball upon one finger-tip. It should not touch the grass at any cost Lest, in the triggered charge, the kick be lost.

It was a breathless moment, that embrace, Cradling the missile primed and cocked for goal, That object like a Moore without a hole, A pure Brancusi head without a face; Or even the mad egg of some absurd Extinct, antipodean, wingless bird.

And then the brutal thump; the thing took flight, Tumbling and tumbling like a satellite.

(Noel Petty)

0 Humpty-Dumpty on the Shelf, For thee I tune my trembling Lyre, Thou leathern-coated, egg-shaped Elf, Whose Magic set our Youth on Fire!

Though now, like us, thou'rt flabby, limp, With cracking Skin and mangled loins, Yet we remember, sportive Imp, The Strength that girded once thy Loins When, tense and taut and pumped with Pride, Thou wast the Glory of the Field, Knocked on, touched down, kicked high and wide, Rucked in, rucked out, chipped back and heeled.

How thou could'st fly, how bounce, how leap, How meet the Shock of Stop or Scrum! Who now will only sit and sleep - Unto which Pass we all shall come.

(Ralph Rochester) In shape a full-blown egg thou art, As of some pterodactyl laid; Both born to fly like Phoebus' dart And borne to earth when scores are made.

Now held, now heeled, now hurled aside, Thou hast hard buffets to endure; Great surging tides are thine to ride, An unacknowledged cynosure.

Subjected to the careless scrum, The clubbing boot, the grasping hand, Thy self-asserting moments come Whene'er on end thou comest to land.

A squirting bounce, a wayward leap, One quirk of thine can turn a game: Let other sports their spheroids keep - Thou art a ball that none can tame.

(W.I. Webster)

No. 2118: Millennium Blues

You are invited to supply the lyric for a blues song with this title. Maximum 16 lines. Entries to 'Competition No. 2118' by 6 January.