Lucy Vickery

Winter’s tale

issue 07 December 2013

In Competition 2826 you were invited to submit nonsense verse on a wintry theme.

The line between sense and nonsense is a blurred one; certainly Carroll’s crazy world has a bonkers internal logic all of its own. But perhaps the best way into nonsense is to put the quest for sense aside for once and simply surrender yourself to the whimsical, the topsy-turvy and the fantastical.

The winners below take £25 each. The bonus fiver is Brian Allgar’s.

’Twas winter, and the gringeing goves
Did quave and quemble on the ice,
The cameroon howled like a loon
And nibbled frozen lice.
 
‘The miliband is close at hand!’
He sneezed with fear and snarled with pain.
‘A thousand legs like stumpy pegs,
Yet only half a brain!’
 
They called for help, they called for kelp,
They even called upon the loris,
But he, extinct, just blurped and blinked,
And mumbled: ‘Try the boris.












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