COMPETITION

Bouts limes

Jaspistos

In Competition No. 1695 you were given 16 rhyme-words and invited to write a poem using them in the order given.

They came, as one or two of you, I suspect, twigged, from the first four stan- zas of John Crowe Ransome's 'Crocodile' beginning 'In due season the amphibious crocodile . . . ' Taking full advantage of the fact that 'crocodile' and 'bank' each have two different meanings, the best of you produced a surprising variety of sub- ject matter and mood. Especially warm congratulations to the prizewinners, printed below, who take £14 apiece. The bonus bottle of Chivas Regal 12-year-old de luxe blended whisky is awarded to Alyson Nikiteas. I turn a Nelsonically blind eye on the witty 'land a lubber'.

Sho', man, these shoes am crocodile, An' I got plenny in the bank!

I worked some places where it stank, But now I flaunts my Eau dee Nile.

I used my body an' my brain, They never fails to land a lubber.

—No, ain't no need them whips nor rubber - 'Come in,' I says. 'Come out the rain

'N see if you can straight my curls—

You wanna drink? They's rum in teacups, Them totty glasses give you hiccups.

You askin' me 'bout other girls?

You wantin' streams when I'm an ocean? Now, honey, you come over here Them other girls they jes' flat beer.' An' he gets 'em off with pure eemotion. (Alyson Nikiteas) You were my siren-singing crocodile; All teeth,, you called endearments from the bank, Where gutters feitered and the dustbins stank, Soho your country, Wardour Street your Nile.

A divine figure with a trader's brain, You sang alike to seaman and landlubber, Wasp-waist, cut-water bust and scarlet rubber For naughty come-on, not for any rain.

North Country eyes beneath Parisian curls Assessed. I asked for tea, you brought teacups, Laughed, not unkindly at my virgin hiccups, My ignorance of seamanship and girls. Deftly you took me; limp, I wept an ocean. All's well, you sang, no drowning sailors here! And launched me on encouragement and beer Full seawards with sweet cries, and faked emotion.

(T. Griffiths) Aunt Gracie had it stuffed, the crocodile That Uncle Herbert shot beside the bank (And when he got it home, God, how it stank!) On his now famous trip along the Nile.

`You have to shoot these fellows through the brain.' Once a sea Captain, now a landlubber He wears an old sou'wester, yellow rubber Oilskins, when walking in the Eastbourne rain.

Aunt Gracie queens it with her blue-rinsed curls, Presides at weekly soirees over teacups, While Herbert mops his brow and gently hic- cups, Pretending not to notice little girls.

I'm sure he dreams of licence on the ocean Or wonderful safaris, but he's here, Not hunting game, just an illicit beer. That bloody crocodile shows no emotion!

(Alanna Blake) We used to walk in a crocodile Down the road to the river bank And by the glue-works — how it stank! And past the Nelson of the Nile, Where my father went when his stoical brain Thought of his state as a crippled landlubber; One of his hands was a hook sheathed in rubber — He was done with the sea and the wind and the rain.

He taught me the sea, of the wave as it curls, And pinned down his charts with the teacups Before tea was finished, ignoring the hiccups And giggled complaints that were made by the girls. Until losing his hand, he was bound to the ocean.

I think of that hook in the Nelson back here, Where my father forlornly sat drinking his beer Alone with his thoughts as he hid his emotion.

(D. Shepherd) Her shoes, of finest crocodile, Were worth a medium-sized Swiss bank. (If `stinking rich' is true, she stank.) Just back from cruising on the Nile, She met a man of modest brain, A merchant seaman turned landlubber Whose welly boots (of finest rubber) Were proof against the English rain. He loved the way she tossed her curls And flashed her eyes across the teacups. Alas, their romance hit some hiccups (He wasn't very good with girls). She's flown away across the ocean, While he sits dumbly waiting here In this low bar, awash with beer, His face contorted with emotion.

(Peter Norman) A plastic sphinx, a freeze-dried crocodile, A throbbing overdraft at Barclays Bank: These foolish things — Oh, how the project stank! - Remind me of our school trip up the Nile.

An agent who was quite devoid of brain Supplied the skipper, such a plain landlubber His river-sense could turn my knees to rubber. Besides all which, it's not supposed to rain.

On top of that, the kids. My hair still curls At what 4C did to the hotel's teacups; At how the Smith twins gave that camel hiccups; At its riposte. And that was just the girls.

At nights, dream-drowning in a hellish ocean Of kids and flies, I'd yearn to be back here Here, in the Angler's Rest, with pipe and beer: Tranquillity remembered in emotion.

(Noel Petty)