In Competition No. 2875 you were invited to submit a poem about an unlikely aphrodisiac. Thanks are due to that legend of the comping world Stanley J. Sharpless, whose ‘In Praise of Cocoa — Cupid’s Nightcap’ gave me the idea for this challenge.
How confessional your entries were, who can say, but I liked Adrienne Parker’s account of an erotic encounter with a washing machine. The winners take £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to John Whitworth, who points out that, unlikely as it might seem, we have it on Shakespeare’s authority that the potato is an aphrodisiac.
Casanova loves potato.
Chips are what he gives his chick.
Though she be as chaste as Plato
Sizzling chips will do the trick.
What a rhizome, steal some, buy some,
Mother Nature’s passion fruit!
Guys from Cuba prize that tuber.
Senoritas dig that root.
Monks in cloisters swear by oysters.
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