In Competition No. 2919 you were invited to write a poem that begins with the first line or two lines of a well-known poem but then takes off in a new and unexpected direction.
It was an exceptionally crowded field this week and the winners below fought off strong competition to take £20 each. Basil Ransome-Davies pockets the bonus fiver.
What is this life if, full of care,
We’ve skid marks in our underwear
Like script on cabalistic scrolls
To trace the passage of our souls?The chthonic streaks, the karmic smears
Stir to the surface latent fears
Of Hell for acolytes of sleaze
Who stain their pristine BVDs.To crack these runic secrets might
Disclose an everlasting night,
A sulphuretted pit of doom,
The horror in the laundry room.If unhygienically we choose
To overlook our moral dues,
We cannot wipe away our sin.
It is the brown stuff we are in.
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