COMPETITION

Midsummer madness

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 2043 you were invited to write an acrostic poem, key phrase 'midsummer madness', and rele- vance was requested.

The World Cup, the weather, Drumcree, Glastonbury, the summer sales — signs of seasonal lunacy are not in short supply. Although the prizewinners were well up to standard, lightness of touch deserted many of you and midsummer madness struck even Basil Ransome-Davies, that cool cam- paigner, the second line of whose other- wise palmary entry began with the wrong letter! Ralph Rochester's panto-like last quatrain merits quotation:

Nag's teeth! I've just come in. I told the Queen Expressly that tonight would be a sober one. Smashed as a newt again! She'll have my spleen Surely as eggs are eggs and my name's Oberon!

The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus bottle of The Mac- allan The Malt Scotch whisky goes to Mary Holtby.

Make me a willow cabin, friend, /nwrought with strips of leather, Designed to last till summer's end, Secure from wind and weather. Under its shadow let me lie, Musing on human error — Matches and catches pass me by, Exempt from joy or terror.

Ring me a grassy court, and there Mindful of others' folly, Away from glory and despair . . .

Deuce take the vaunted volley!

No try, no penalty, the goal Exactly as I've stated: Silence, serenity, the whole Strictly uncommentated. (Mary Holtby) My first sweetheart was Eleanor McQueen In August '38. I was sixteen.

Daily I sent her rhapsodies of love Sugared with Shakespeare's lines, or scraps thereof.

'Unlearned in the world's false subtleties,' My verse would run, 'I claim small power to please.

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are: Excuse my blundering phrases, if they jar. Root pity in thy heart, and do not strain My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain. As an imperfect actor on the stage Dries up, so do the words upon my page.... ' Never was heart more hurt than on the day Eleanor ditched me; but I'm bound to say She made that summer, sixty years ago, Sweeter than any! would ever know.

(Ray Kelley)

My bout of madness happened long ago In those great summers that we used to know, Down by the sea, where on the Gower coast Sand grows red-hot and fools lie there to roast. Under the sun I soon grew fiery-hot,

Made for the sea and swam about a lot, Made for it more and more — it felt so good — Emerged eight times, like Gray's cat, from the flood.

(Returning to my clothes, I'd burn again, Make for the sea once more to ease my pain.) And then, at last, those clothes I needs must don— Decency only made me put them on!

Naked, I lay abed for days and days, Enrobed in calamine, in a feverish daze, Scaled and red-patched, my back a picture-book Such as in maps our Empire used to look (0. Banfield)

Mrs Arbuthnot, I think, was the start of it. I, for my part, flatly wanted no part of it.

'Don't you think, my dear Thomas, you might, please, find time?

Shakespeare en plein air, the magic of rhyme, Under those beech-trees: now can't you just see it? My daughter as Helena — she'd look so sweet!' Muggins went soft in the head and said yes, Expecting disaster, condemned to success. Rehearsals were mayhem, the cast far from bright, Moth set fire to her wings, Titania got tight, And the Vicar, as Puck, sported skin-tight black

leather

(`Do you think he'll come out, dear?' — it was when, and not whether).

No one forecast the storm which demolished our lighting

(Even though some found draperie manlike exciting).

So the audience shot off, the mechanicals fled, Save for Bottom, still cradling my great ass's head. (Martin Woodhead) Move the mower, shift the barrow, Inch along past rolls of netting, Drag aside two bags of compost, Spot the ladder — what's the betting? — Under boxes full of boxes, Mounds of cardboard, wood and plastic; Make a sort of arch of broomsticks, Ease the ladder out — fantastic!

Ready now to reach the roofspace: Mount the ladder, heave the door up, All around is junk and jumble, Dross that people want to store up, Not forgetting, yes, the hamper: Every year, against all reason, Sees this basket-case returning, Sign and symbol of the season.

(W.J. Webster)