Wordsworth

Readers were invited to compose a quatrain about an unsuccessful dating encounter. Clive Blake of Kerikeri writes: I’d love to go out, Senor Montague/But do you think that’s wise?/ The Capulet boys are on to you/And they are twice your size. Blenheim’s Keith Davidson: He put his hopes and trust in Tinder/ Taking out the sweet Belinda/His Datsun didn’t cut the mustard/And soon the dinner turned to custard.

Anne Martin of Helensville: They met beside the garden pond./He glistened green upon a log./She kissed his lips; he merely croaked./Sometimes a frog is just a frog. Auckland’s William Green: So like a statue, beady-eyed,/It drove me quite to mania./She stared, no matter what I tried./A strange one, that Melania.

Lesley Treweek of Invercargill: A tryst behind the bike shed,/Sweet words lisped in my ear./My true love left his bubble gum/Entangled in my hair.

A tale from the archives by Erin Howard of Dunedin: Amy Bock renounced her frock,/Did fraud and petty crime;/as Percy, when she dated Agnes,/ all she did was time. Auckland’s Rex McGregor: When Twiggy and Rubens dated,/ They had a nasty spat./She liked emaciated,/But he was into fat.

Yvonne Moosberger of Hamilton is this week’s winner: We rode that day on penny-farthings,/Stopped for lunch when we were starving/And lay beside a stream in Dorset,/But I could not unlace her corset.

For the next competition, send in a new slogan for any New Zealand public-sector organisation, in the form of a rhyming couplet. Entries, for the prize below, close at noon, Thursday, June 29. Submissions: wordsworth@listener.co.nz or Wordsworth, NZ Listener, Private Bag 92512, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141. Please include your address.