Upon learning that I hadn’t won last month’s competition
–Colin Higgins
The email came: bleep bloop it went,
An email from the Shirleys sent,
Sure was I, of what it meant,
Rewards for all the time I’d spent
Writing a ‘monotonous’ poem. Fame
Beckoned. Teacup in hand, I’d tamed
The muse. So some lines were a little lame,
But wasn’t it with Shakespeare the same?
‘Dear All...’ had written young Tess Riley,
Of whom I (used to) think quite highly,
Who smart enough, who clever, wily,
Would see, in me, another Shelley!
‘This month’s winning poem...’ Not me!
I gasped in shock, I dropped my tea,
I said: ‘But Tess, how can this be?’
Did she, perhaps, did she not see
My poem? My dazzling, rhyming villanelle,
my... on the floor, oh what the hell!
my teacup broken as it fell
in pieces on the floor, pell mell.
I picked them up, the broken pieces,
Like poems, little Louis MacNeice’s,
Why should I write poetry that pleases?
Poetry can be written by monkeys, Rhesus!
And now they ask to write again,
Another poem to them to send,
But poems without tea, haiku without Zen,
Is poetry that is better not penned.
I will never write again for Shirley,
With thesis, essays, hurly-burly,
Surely my poem was not so poorly,
So you, J’accuse! You Shirley girlies!
