In competition No. 2457 you were invited to offer a poem entitled ‘The Picnic’.
The picnics of my youth in Surrey were enjoyable but slightly suburban — Newlands Corner, Chobham Common and so on — but never as suburban as Tony Goldman’s Betjeman-inspired picnic, which ended up with him ‘silent upon a peak in Godalming’. Later I discovered the joys of Pyrenean dingles with secret meadows dotted with natural tables of smooth rock. Nowadays I prefer my tables less natural. Your picnics veered between the halcyon déjeuner sur l’herbe and the sodden disaster. Ray Kelley, Godfrey Bullard and Alanna Blake earn commendations, but the £25 prizes go to the winners printed below, while Basil Ransome-Davies scoops the bonus fiver with his inside job.
Trouble in Roussillon — cold summer sleet —
Rules out the mountain footpaths, so instead
We buy a lush array of things to eat
and hold our picnic on the hotel bed.
A pastis while we let the Fitou breathe,
with Spanish olives green as wetted jade…
outside the agitated heavens seethe,
but indoors who can rain on our parade?
The rare roast beef and vin du Midi meet
with all the warmth of a secure entente;
a mild Cantal to follow, then for sweet
a scented melon from Poitou-Charentes.
A carpet-picnic has that special feel,
the charm of the spontaneous event,
as lovers share an unofficial meal,
then slip between the sheets in sheer content.
Basil Ransome-Davies
‘Now, Hannah, dear, you shouldn’t be so rude
About your mother’s lovely, healthy food.
We’ll feed the guinea pig — for goodness’ sake!
Share Darren’s crisps and David’s chocolate cake.
There is no reason to be smutty, Jack,
The bull and cow are playing piggyback.
And, Katie, stop that screaming! That’s not blood.
I warned you not to paddle in the mud.
Jason and Justin, this is not a fight,
It’s the class picnic! No, Jill, flies don’t bite
And wasps have yellow stripes. Sam, wipe that clean!
Cow dung is just part of the country scene.
Take off your shoe and wipe it on the grass!
Dillon, be careful with that broken glass!
No, don’t hurl it at James! Isn’t this fun?
All friends together, country air and sun!’
Shirley Curran
Yes. I remember Adders Drop —
The place, because one bitter day
Wrapped up in overcoats we picnicked there
Unwillingly. It was late May.
The ground oozed. Someone cleared a space.
No one settled and no one sat
On the sodden grass. What I saw
Was Adders Drop — and a cow-pat.
And nettle, thistle, thorn and vetch,
And beetle, bug and hoverfly,
No whit less foul and troublesome
Than the grey nimbus in the sky.
And for that hour relentless rain
Poured down, and round that wilderness,
Heavier and heavier, all the weight
Of haplessness and hopelessness.
Alan Millard
Nice Monsieur Manet planned a small déjeuner
sur l’herbe for us all, which was kind,
but I reckon that I would have told him ‘no way’,
if I’d known quite what he’d in mind.
We got to the woods with a few of his mates,
then he set up his easel and stuff.
The guys kept their clothes on while dishing out plates,
but I had to strip to the buff.
A picnic’s no fun when you’re sat in the nude
on the damp grass, deprived of your pants;
the insects don’t only get into the food,
and you don’t want to know about ants!
I know people say that our Monsieur Manet
is a dab hand with brushes and paint;
but sitting there starkers, best part of the day —
a picnic, I tell you, it ain’t.
Brian Murdoch
The Gower coast. A sultry August day.
My uncle frowns as nearby thunder rumbles:
His Morris Eight has brought us all the way
From Ammanford to picnic here in Mumbles.
Aware of the approaching storm, in haste
My aunt arranges on a tartan rug
Plates piled with sandwiches of Shippam’s paste
Or Marmite, hard-boiled eggs, enamel jug
Of homemade lemonade, a ginger cake,
Beige Thermos flasks of cabbage-tasting tea.
We brave the swell and jellyfish to take
Our swim, then tingling race back from the sea
And fall upon the food. Few crumbs remain.
As Bournville chocolate makes our feast complete
The heavens open. Sluiced in tepid rain,
We shriek and dance our rapturous retreat.
Hugh King
Wasps busy-bodying; sweet honeyed gorse;
Time off from blackberrying; being made to sit
on threadbare rugs; unevenness of coarse
and hummocked grasses, like those threepenny-bit-
sized clumps of thrift clinging to cliffs; salt smears
on purple fingers; eat your crusts; sharp taste
of orange squash; limp plastic mugs; our fears
of thunderstorms; thin nibbling sheep,
black-faced
among the thorn-scrub; one old sandwich tin
with stencilled village scenes; the way the bread
(when shop-sliced loaves were rare) was shaved too thin
and stuck to thumbs; all home-made jam —
instead of any choices.
Clear as yesterday.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
D.A. Prince
No. 2460: Inaction man
You are invited to submit a short story (maximum 250 words) with the title ‘The Man Who Did Not’. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2460’, by 7 September.
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