Competition No 3693

Set by George Cowley on 6 August

We asked for work from a seven-year-old Wordsworth, Milton, Keats or any other poet of your choice.

Report by Ms de Meaner

Not only did your seven-year-olds differ enormously as to levels of vocabulary and spelling, but the periods in which they lived didn't seem to matter. I mean, "I wandered lonely as a cloud" as a text message, or Poe watching The Simpsons? Huh! I liked John Bevis's opening line, "We must go down to the sea again, to the boring sea, God knows why", and Will Bellenger's second attempt from ee cummings entirely in capitals. £20 to Bellenger, Ewing and Benson. The rest get £15. The vouchers go to Bellenger.

The morning smells of custard creams

And the burnt-up taste of toast.

I sat in the hot bath, where one dreams

Of the Sunday roast.

Puss puss puss puss puss

Miaouw

And at my party, blue balloons

Were blown up by my aunt,

While I, still scoffing macaroons,

Told her, I did, I sha'n't, I sha'n't,

What you blow up balloons for if you can't prick them?

Ou est la plume de mon oncle? BANG.

I think I will scoff

Biscuits with Mister Rimsky-Korsakov.

I do not think that he will play with me.

Bother bother bother

And there will be muffins at six o'clock,

When the cook comes up from the kitchen,

Wringing the pastry from her warm white hands,

And drinking her warm porter.

I have to go now and play with Miss Erica,

For I am American, and I live in America.

Will Bellenger (T S Eliot)

Once upon a tea time telly, while I goggled, eating jelly,

Over episodes of Simpsons umpteen times I'd seen before -

While I laughed at Homer napping, suddenly there came a yapping,

Followed soon by sounds of crapping - crapping at my bedroom door.

"Tis the puppy there," I muttered, "crapping at my bedroom door -

Only this and nothing more."

Ah distinctly I remember how I wanted to dismember,

On that eve in late December, that I'd loved but days before.

Christmas Day I'd vowed to rear it, now I'd grown to loathe and fear it -

I pretended not to hear it crapping on the shiny floor.

How I hoped my Dad would clear it, all that mess from off the floor,

Saving me the smelly chore.

Suddenly the hush was broken when my name was loudly spoken:

"Edgar! Come and see to Fido!" quoth my father with a roar.

Nothing further then he uttered; neath my breath I madly muttered,

Crossed the bedroom awfully cluttered - here, I opened wide the door

And, scooping up the steaming poo, threw it through my parents' door,

Landing it in father's drawer.

R Ewing (Edgar Allan Poe)

Wee shrivelled thing atween my legs,

Though bigger far than Glen's or Greg's,

What hae ye done so full of shame,

Our elders darena speak thy name?

According to my sweetheart Jenny,

It's no for just tae spend a penny.

What's more tae learn I now maun wait,

Until at least I'm rising eight.

Watson Weeks (Robbie Burns)

December is the cruellest month, bringing

Boring presents for Christmas, making

The weather nasty and cold, promising

Nothing. Roll on April. When I was five

I spoke like a five-year-old, but now

I am a hebdomade I have a more

Eruditional vocabulary, though what

I am to say, and to what purpose

I do not know, Pray for me

In the school garden

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

And in the empty playground

Girls and Boys

Come out to play,

And pray for me in Illinois,

In Boston, or any other locality.

This is the way the poem ends,

Not with a rhyme but a simper.

Gerard Benson (T S Eliot)

The bodies in the cemetery

Are motionless and dead.

My teddy bear has lost one eye

And I have wet the bed.

The dawn comes up each morning

And darkness falls at night,

Monotonous as porridge

Life isn't very bright.

Although a willing schoolboy

And only very young,

I can foresee too clearly

The day I shall be hung.

But I may cheat the hangman

And laugh at fortune's twists,

By climbing to the hay loft

And slitting both my wrists.

G M Davis (A E Housman)

No 3696 Set by George Cowley

Wendy Holden, in the NS Diary (6 August), wrote of annoying pop tunes popping into one's consciousness at inopportune moments. We would like a serious piece of journalism interspersed with inappropriate snatches of song.

Max 200 words, to be in by 6 September (to appear in issue dated 17 September)

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