Competition No 3726
Set by Gavin Ross, 8 April
Verses from famous poets marking the Poetry Society's loss of its website to a Hong Kong company, Ultimate Search, which offers online gambling, financial services, corporate gifts and cures for impotence and bad skin. The society was offered the site back for a fee.
Report by Ms de Meaner
Ah, the size of the postbag! Why does poetry bring out the crowds in the comp complex? So different in the real world. Hon mensh to David Silverman (Dylan Thomas). The winners get £20. Gordon Watson also gets the vouchers.
It's fucked you up, this dotcom game,
In cyberspace you're just a lack.
When writers ask, "What's in a name?"
They do not get an e-mail back.
Out east they're fucked up in their turn,
Since little cash gets made by verse.
A villanelle will rarely earn
A decent sum, a sonnet's worse.
Dot hands on misery to com.
So let's review the internet.
Get in early, make a bomb,
Turn from verse and place a bet.
Philip Wilson (Larkin)
Come, friendly virus, zap this site,
No more a source of poets' delight,
Just Ultimate's commercial shite.
Bring blue-screen death!
Mess up the mess of this dotcom,
Erase all data from its ROM,
Cause all its online bets to bomb,
Its keyboards freeze.
Come, friendly virus, zap this site,
Then reinstall it, byte by byte,
So it can send our e-mails right,
The net exhales.
Gordon Watson (Betjeman)
Cyber-Tiger, virtual blight,
With your online gambling site,
What e-portal, bland or sly,
Could claim domain o'er poetry?
Who, in odists' dotcom guise,
Peddles cream for flaky thighs?
And, when our manhood's in retreat,
Flogs us handy Groin-Deep Heat?
When you starve us of our prayers,
Divert our gaze to weary wares,
What rhyme in your ransom fee?
A killing made by killing me.
James Mortleman (Blake)
So. Farewell then,
Poetry Society website.
You have been redirected
to Hong Kong
Keith's mum says,
URL doesn't rhyme, anyway.
But I say,
Surf's up
Keith Flett (E J Thribb)
No 3729 Set by John Crick
Wine writers always go over the top. But how about using the same language for tea, coffee, lager or whatever takes your fancy?
Max 150 words by 11 May (to appear in issue dated 20 May) E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
