No 3583 Set by Ross and Rogers
You were asked for poems on Sophie from the Poet Laureate, with a reference to Chris 'n' the royal breast.
Report by Grace Elegy
When we said Poet Laureate, we meant the current PL, our dear Andrew Motion. £15 to the winners. The bottle goes to Anne Du Croz. So very clever.
Sophie. You are the favoured girl
that Edward chose - a tomboy, years ago
pictured in jest in the back of a car -
so what: give them two fingers! But
be careful! Royals are Hello! people
always pursued in the fast lane: cross
them if you dare! Try for obscurity,
mundane marriage. Remember -
"It's likely an accident," that's what they said,
he "was drunk". She died, your beautiful lookalike,
there in the underpass: gone in a flash -
accident? Maybe. No more dangerous play.
Anne Du Croz
That it should come to this:
the brother of the heir apparent
almost married to lips that gave a kiss
to Chris Tarrant?
That a man balder than Brynner
should open a private bra
to all and Sundry. Is he not a sinner?
If not, then who is? Or are?
Royalty must press the flesh,
but the tabloids reverse the process:
the better, it seems, to enmesh
its readers in a national psychosis.
Let the zoom lens be thrifty!
And what of Tarrant, in the end?
Did he ask the audience? Go 50-50?
Or phone a friend?
Will Bellenger
Down there, in Hardy country,
winter-born Tarrant rips the covers
off the Snow Queen, awakening lust
in Jack Frost, Sun King of the north
(Incy-Wincy ate my ladybird ate my ladybird, shout
the gossamer morning headlines).
Balmoral rapes Osborne, Woden
strangles Hermes - Mittwoch is held
in the Euro-weak force. Plath-powered,
Ted Hughes as Doctor Death frightens
Larkin into a second, deeper grave.
As PL, I could see canals
on Mars, und Tombaugh saw
Pluto, King of Deadtown and
of Sophie, Tarrant and Prince Ed.
Robin Oakley-Hill
Driving at dusk in the West End
after work and "hospitality"
you dreamed of a man for all reasons,
but knew it wouldn't be Chris
whose alert fingers tugged your top
in a professional rough-trade manner
as the camera snapped
on a fraught, shadowy nipple.
And that's all. Or if not,
if there was any other delving
the images are hidden, absent,
left to our loyally censoring imaginations.
Better for all to picture
the royal caress, the less-than-blokeish hand
free of disc-spinning inanity
creeping into your knickers.
Basil Ransome-Davies
No 3586 Set by Leonora Casement
"With the benefit of hindsight there were alarming signs of a twisted mind at work . . . which included getting up at 6am and cooking a roast meal for breakfast" (Times). We'd like 200 words on a twisted mind seen with hindsight, by 8 July.
E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
