Wordsworth

Readers were asked to describe a historical event in the form of a limerick or cinquain.

Peter Chapman, Christchurch: Catherine Howard lost her head/Catherine of Aragon also dead/Another Catherine completed Parr for the course/ Anne Boleyn’s beheading we don’t endorse/ Jane Seymour, complications from childbirth it is said. Kaye Bennetts, Whangaparāoa: June 53, Liz was crowned. Hooray!/But Ed and Tenzing really made the day./At Everest’s peak/Tenzing heard Edmund speak/“Well, we’ve knocked the bastard off, I’d say.” Neal Utting, Hamilton: Now this guy and his mates, you’ll agree/Sailed their boat a long way ‘cross the sea./And the bait that he chose/Was the blood from his nose/When they hauled up Te Ika a Māui. Anne Martin, Helensville: Michelangelo, checking his ceiling/In the Sistine

Chapel, was feeling/Quite pleased it was done/“Well,” he sighed, “that was fun./I just hope it doesn’t start peeling.” Ron Taylor, Gisborne: As the snake through the foliage darted/Adam and Eve, with their innocence bartered/With eating the apple/They then had to grapple/Just look at the problems they started. Mary Cull, Wellington: There was a maid Jeanne from France/Who led the English a dance/A cunning plan they did make/To burn her alive at the stake/Rouen her last heroic stance. Margaret Mills, Onetangi: The French finally confessed/“We considered Greenpeace a pest/and decided we oughta/blow the ship from the water/ and get on with our nuclear test.”

This week’s winner is Te Aroha’s Dick Worley: “Tell me Moon-Man, what did you see?/Is it rock? Or is it brie?”/“Well, nothing was rusty/Just dreadfully dusty/In the Sea of Tranquillity.”

For the next contest, rewrite the lyrics to a verse and chorus of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, keeping the first line of each. Entries, for the prize below, close at noon on Thursday, March 26.