The rhyme scheme is from Auden’s ‘The Composer’. As eagle-eyed Basil Ransome-Davies, who spotted this, remarked, ‘It’s hardly the best of Auden, so compers have a chance of writing a superior poem.’ We shall see. Some objected to the word ‘adaption’, claiming their spellcheck didn’t acknowledge its existence. Auden was no slouch: the word is plainly recognised in my Chambers. I reckoned it was a difficult comp, so a large and skilful entry impressed me. Commendations are too numerous to mention. Just general congratulations. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to George Simmers.
Says God, ‘That’s one of my unfinished sketches —
A planet I’ve decided to reject.’He makes a sign to Gabriel, who fetchesBottle and glasses. ‘I thought I would connectIntelligence with life. Darwinian adaptionMade the link neatly — no essential riftDivides the two — but man’s an odd contraption.’He sighed. ‘I hoped they’d really use my gift,Think thoughts so brave they’d send a thrill cascadingDown even my antique almighty spine —But no. They use their brain to go invading,Hurting and punishing . . . I’ll make no songAnd dance about it — I just got it wrong.’He crushed the planet with his thumb. ‘Some wine?’George Simmers
If you can make realistic skilful sketches,
The kind the clever critics all reject,If you can sell each one for what it fetchesAnd with a proper market-place connect,If you can paint from life without adaptionNor leave between your work and truth a rift,Avoiding installation and contraption,You may discover you possess a gift.If you can make the colours come cascadingUntil they send a shiver down your spine,If you can keep the theories from invading,You’ll make your art as popular as song.You’ll show the art establishment is wrong.And we will drink your health in sparkling wine.Philip Roe
When Michelangelo produced his Sistine Chapel sketches
Pope Julius the Second thought at first he would rejectthem, saying, ‘Never mind the price this fellow’s work now fetches,I fear the public, seeing all those naked bodies, may connectthem with sheer titillation’. But, through subtle, slight adaptionMichelangelo and Julius managed to avoid a rift.Soon the artist had erected his great scaffolding contraptionand, lying on his back, created in four years his greatest giftto future generations. Then, when the paint drips ceased cascadingdown his hair and face, and when the pains within his spinestopped feeling like the very fires of hell invading,the scaffolding came down, and all the chapel choir burst into song.For with his masterpiece unveiled Michelangelo could do no wrong,and all the cardinals arrived to toast his health in Tuscan wine.Tim Raikes
I earn a crust from pornographic sketches,
The sort of thing that proper folk reject.It’s specialised and outré and it fetchesIndecent sums. My images connectWith every taste, my talent for adaptionBeing the key. You want a pubic riftFilled by a throbbing supersized contraption?No problem. Gross distortion is my gift.You want to see some spurting and cascading?I’ll send erotic shivers up your spine.I’ll do you narratives — Vikings invading,Virgins who sell their hymen for a song,Sapphic encounters. Who’s to say it’s wrong?It pleases punters, keeps me in fine wine.Basil Ransome-Davies
The makers of a film begin with sketches,
The kind that their producers will reject:Your mogul likes a feature film which fetchesT
he paying public in. They don’t connectWith artists. They demand some daft adaption,And soon there is a barney and a rift.But though the camera’s only a contraption,A skilful salesman has it in his giftTo use its lens until, the cash cascading,The story has some semblance of a spine.And later, when the punters are invadingThe cinemas, and critics sing their song,The makers prove the money-men quite wrong(Or right, as they believe it, swilling wine.)Bill Greenwell
‘Oh please!’ she said. ‘This lot are merely sketches,
Some I’ll take further. Others I’ll reject.I’m looking for some quality that fetchesA true, heartfelt response. Only connect.Wasn’t that Forster? Well, in my adaptionIt’s Touch the soul, make art that heals a rift,Not some ingenious, far-fetched contraption,The prostitution of one’s heaven-sent gift.‘This charcoal one,’ I said — ‘these men cascadingOver a wall of rock — shivers my spine.’‘Those men,’ she said, ‘are angels. They’re invadingHell. It’s based on Goya. Have it for a song —Unworked. It’s yours. It’s touched you. Am I wrong?’‘You’re right.’ ‘That’s all I want. Open the wine.’Gerard Benson
No. 2481: Schadenfreude
You are invited to supply a poem (maximum 16 lines) or a piece of prose (maximum 150 words) ending with Gore Vidal’s nasty gnome, ‘It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.’ Entries to ‘Competition No. 2481’ by 8 February.