Competition

IN COMPETITION No 244, you were invited to write a poem called Fluff. There were plenty of cats, a bit of housework and more than one woman by the name who was made of sterner stuff. D A Prince’s narrator had a mind that picked up facts like fluff, Alder Ellis used a floating scrap of fluff as an emblem of normality on the battlefield and J D’auban admirably described the putting out of cat fluff for the birds. Commiserations to them and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of The Chambers Dictionary of Great Quotations going to William Conelly for his lines on a sailor.

At forty-three he’s seen enough Exotic dancers in pink fluff And curbside vixens hailing cars; The studied and the casual tease, Whose fingers crept across his knees In smoky booths, in quayside bars, Can mother someone else’s kids, The rouge of age on cheeks and lids,

While he, rapt in the innocence Of constant passage, reads a dense Night sky for its familiar stars, The Bear, the Virgin and the Scale, Content that love need not prevail Always, nor lust leave flagrant scars. William Conelly

Splayed she lay, a sheepskin rug With leg extended, raised; defensive eyes, Her swollen nipples pomegranate seeds. On each was hooked a comma, curled and damp, Flat-eared, blind-eyed, with spineevolving tail, Four pearls per paw, and pink cathedral mouths Teat-tugging, kneading, needing. A child I stood, gulped in the sight like milk, Fetched by neighbours, gracious spinster sisters – And in their cat-clean kitchen stared my fill At Fluff in cupboard-hidden cardboard box, With tick of clock, the gentle drip of tap, The worn brass button on the pantry door, And four small lives. I watched them fluffing out, Candy, Flossy, Hughie, Bilbo – Precious now as sixty years ago. Jane Bower

The memory still scalds my cheeks The way embarrassments will do: The mockery endured for weeks The more the story spread and grew. A crowded hall, all eyes and ears Lent me as Antony, front stage, Whose speech must work to change the cheers For Brutus into vengeful rage. ‘Friends, Romans’ – half the world has heard What’s coming next; instead I say Not that but ‘cuntymen’, a word That echoes in me to this day. It sounds so soft a thing to fluff A line, but doing so can seem To make a moment sharp enough To puncture all one’s self-esteem. Bill Webster

Sunday teatimes, swinging cymbals, Countdown, wireless hit parade – Brand new tunes, the numbers nimble, Over each, your serenade –

Greetings! First we had the climbers, After which, each new release, With you, a prince of jockey rhymers, Oiling all with Aussie grease –

Now, extracts from a chart LP! Briskly on, the Top Ten proper, And you, unseen, with gouts of glee, Teasing till you played the topper:

Years before your perma-grin, When we loved your fizz, your presence – I still hear the discs you spin, Take pleasure in your effervescence. Bill Greenwell

COMPETITION No 246 Receipts, I find, are going out of fashion in some shops. A poem called Receipt, please, in any sense. Maximum 16 lines. Entries, by post (The Oldie, Moray House, 23/31 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PA) or e-mail (comps@ theoldie.co.uk – don’t forget to include your postal address), to ‘Competition No 246’ by 12th September.