In Competition No. 2467 you were invited to write a poem in which all the rhymes are eye-rhymes, not ear-rhymes.
Many years ago, even before Jaspistos cast his shadow on this page, a similar competition was set, with this difference: clerihews were demanded. Stuart Woods won with this:
If Johann Sebastian Bach
Had remembered to attach
Braces to his Levis
He wouldn’t have been so embarrassed while conducting a missa brevis.
Thirty years on ingenuity still rules OK. I especially liked the rhymes ‘Aristophanes’ and ‘planes’, and ‘intuit’ and ‘suit’. The standard was so high that I expect there will be disappointment among the near-winners. Console yourselves with the assurance that you were appreciated. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to Adrian Fry, the only winner who avoided resorting to an ough rhyme.
If we were athletes, you’d be stood, victrix ludorum, on your plinth,
Leaving me to limp home ninth.
If poets, your bardic gifts would conjure feelings rich and strange.
I’d get stuck at rhyming ‘orange’.
If films, you’d be a blockbuster, all CGI and talking beasts.
I’d be a silent, scarcely known to cineasts.
If we were botanists, you’d get to name new species of anemone.
I would find none.
On holiday, you’d be at home in Biarritz, a sophisticated bather.
I’d be at Bognor in a lather.
If we were hell-raisers, you’d drink the whole damn pub under the table.
I’d be sick, probably on a constable.
You effortlessly have it all, but what is there to prove
While we have love?
Adrian Fry
When you go forth to play or eat
Observe the worth in this caveat:
Small dangers come from near and far,
Even at home you’re close to war;
For unseen hands hurt small and great,
No magic wands avert the threat.
Your loaf of bread beneath a bough,
With mug of...
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