5 days ago
Spectator Competition: Some like it hot
For Competition 3408 you were invited to write poems about heatwaves. This comp was inspired by the weather! In the face of lethargy, rage, sleeplessness etc lots of you still managed to put fingers to keyboard with good results. It was almost too hot to choose, but the £25 vouchers go to the following.
Long drag the days of lop, of laze,
Of no precipitation,
Bar slathered factor fifty glaze
On perspiration.
And long the nights; too hot, still light,
Fans faintly stirring stifle
While outside, drunks ferment a fight
Of some mere trifle.
Long seems the spell, Heaven or Hell,
When England's tropic.
Waters run short, tempers as well,
Heat's misanthropic.
The wave will break; cloudburst, rain slake.
Upon our sudden wetting,
We'll eulogise that fearsome bake
And start forgetting.
Adrian Fry
When the mercury rises unfeasibly high
And the great yellow disc beats down from the sky
It's time to enjoy our great national sport:
Laughing at folk wearing less than they ought.
Manual workers are the first to give way,
Shedding their garments as if at Saint Tropez,
But at least their muscles are tight as a drum
(Barring the occasional gross 'builder's bum').
For others, alas, the effect is less fine:
Tubbies in tight tops, like beef tied with twine,
Others whose limbs are as pale as a ghost
Suddenly ungarbed for their annual roast;
And don't get me started on gentlemen's shorts
(Bermudas and Lycra and Speedos, of course) –
They're fine on the beach or when chasing a ball,
But in town or at work? Prison for all!
Joseph Houlihan
It is too hot! I'd rather not.
Could you just wipe my brow?
I think I'll miss, for once, the kiss.
Hosepipe needed now!
I know you vowed to stick by me,
But did you mean it literally?
Excuse the drip,
While I skip the chance to hold your hand.
But when there's rain
To cool my brain,
I'll love you once again.
Averell Kingston
I am the Prince of Darkness, so
I sought a winter break,
But now I'm grilled from head to hoof,
A well-done fillet steak,
My tail is singed, my horns are burnt.
Too hot? The heatwave's pelted!
It's oven-scorching, off the charts,
I bought a fan. It melted.
I'm aircon-less, my sorbets run,
My salads wilt and sizzle,
You couldn't plant a cactus here,
The soil requires a chisel.
I'm no Dante, infernos suck,
A desert can't be crueller,
I won't stick this for forty days,
I'm off to Hell. It's cooler.
Janine Beacham
Yes, I'll remember '25 –
The heat, the sweltering days and nights
Of sweat and fever-dreams and thirst,
Relentlessly. The insect bites.
The grass scorched. Wildfires made the news.
No one slept and no one rose
Refreshed at dawn and how we felt
Was permanently comatose
From headlines crying the old would die,
And stale old tips on keeping cool,
and nothing there to ease the strain
except the far niente rule.
And in that moment all the world
stared at the one truth that endures,
hotter and hotter, future years
of ever-rising temperatures.
D.A. Prince
Dog days, every one a scorcher,
Useless if you're lily-white,
Cause of heat-rash, perfect torture,
Hateful to Pre-Raphaelite –
Why not buy a simple sun-bed
If you must top up your tan? –
Heatwaves only suit the undead,
Or addicts of the hosepipe ban.
Houses burn, and reservoirs
Vanish in a nasty twinkling:
Drink, but not in local bars –
Watch out for your pink skin wrinkling.
Heatwaves, pace The Vandellas,
Aren't like love. They cause more pain –
Let some air into your cellar.
Hug the dark, and pray for rain.
Bill Greenwell
The summer is more like a Mexican wave.
The heat wave is there but it comes and it goes.
It stands up and hands us the sun that we crave,
but it's too hot to sleep or to wear any clothes.
Then a day or two later the clouds give us rain.
The daylight is grey and the temperature down.
It's good for the garden, yet still we complain
that the summer is over, we shiver and frown.
Until the next week when we swelter and sweat.
The tarmac is steaming, the air is too hot,
it's up in the thirties, we bake and regret
that we wanted the heat, but the heat's what we've got.
Then the clouds roll back in and it's cool once again,
and it's such a relief, but the heat will soon rise
and it's thirty degrees and it's all inhumane.
Don't worry, next week we'll have overcast skies.
Helen Baty
No. 3411: popular demand
You are invited to submit a poem or passage about surge pricing (16 lines/150 words maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to competition@ by 30 July.
