Dear John

In Competition No. 2992 you were invited to submit a Dear John letter, in prose or verse, in the style of a well-known author.
 
My, you were good this week — good enough to make being jilted seem quite the thing. Even that most maddening of break-up clichés ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ has a certain charm when filtered (courtesy of Chris O’Carroll) through the whimsical lens of Ogden Nash.
 
Douglas G. Brown, Paul Freeman, Martin Parker, R.M Goddard and Bill Greenwell are highly commended. The winners earn £25 each. D.A. Prince takes £30.
 

If you could listen and not aim to wrangle —
Remember that to tango it takes two;
If you could see things, sometimes, from my angle,
A little more of me and less of you;
If you had sometimes been a little kinder,
If complimenting hadn’t been so hard
Or when my birthday fell (without reminder)
You’d turned up with both flowers and a card.
 
If you could mute your urge to godlike glory
And take on board that you have feet of clay;
If you could see that I, too, had a story,
That your attention might have made me stay;
If you had grasped that equal still meant equal
And being top dog wouldn’t do — Of course,
our earlier lives would have a happy sequel.