The invitation to consider the energy crisis, still sadly with us, attracted a large entry and a variety of approaches, from John Wood’s jolly version of the Carroll classic to Mike Mesterton-Gibbon’s limerick taking crisis in a broader sense. Susan Clayson darkly declared that Tories like to explore/ Ways of screwing the poor, while Mark F. Stone gave a new meaning to the expression ‘a warm embrace’ with the caveat It’s not flirtation/It’s just insulation. William Greig faced austerity with songs like Bob Dylan’s Lay, lady, lay (a stimulus to greater productivity by American chickens?) turned into Pay, lady, pay and Rumi Morkin urged us to emulate traditional Inuit winter attire and wear animal skin/(the fur side in.
With thanks to them, and all who took part, below, in no particular order, are the results of the autumn competition, including digital heating half way through for readers with frozen fingers in the shape of Peggy Verrall’s rubrics.
John Wood: You Are Cold, Father William
(With apologies to Lewis Carroll and/or Robert Southey)
"You are cold, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hands look exceedingly blue
Whenever I visit you're shivering in bed,
Should I turn on a heater or two?"
"In my youth," he said sadly, "I earned a good wage
And we lived in a comfortable way
But now, with inflation, I've got to a stage
Where I'm down to one meal a day."
"But you're cold, Father William," said his son with a sigh,
"And your bills lie unpaid on the mat.
If you can't afford heating l worry you'll die
So what will you do about that?"
"Have faith," said his father, "in all of those wise
Politicians we lately elected.
Who'll notice if one chilly pensioner dies?
The wealthy, thank God, are protected."
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Martin Elster: The Current Crisis
Dear buddy, you haven’t got heat or hot water?
Wear long johns, a coat, and a beanie?
Your shower’s so cold it would shiver an otter?
I’ve no answer, my friend – I’m no genie.
It’s the same over here. I can’t warm up my rice,
live on lettuce, walk round in nine layers.
I feel like I’m bathing in buckets of ice.
Let us send one another our prayers:
Soon the birds will arrive, trilling loudly and clear,
magnolias and snowdrops will bloom,
and our lawns will revive, till we suddenly hear
an ICBM going “BOOM!”
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Stephen Gold: My Strategy For The Months Ahead
If perchance you’re feeling cold,
And gas is costing more than gold,
It doesn’t do to moan and groan,
Just spend the winter lying prone.
When all is done and all is said,
It’s best by far to stay in bed,
And dream of how you’ll put the boot in
When you meet that bastard Putin.
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Michael Swan: The Energy Crisis: a nonnet.
The man in charge said, how about a sonnet
on energy, because it's running low?
Well, OK, reader, look, I've started on it.
It's moving well. Just ten more lines to go.
The formal framework's all planned out, and so
no problem with the metre and the rhymes.
It just needs filling up with words that show
the essence of these sad and fading times.
Something poetic's called for. What about
'Recession's blast has burst ambition's bubble'?
Not bad, except my energy's run out.
And what's the point? I'm tired of all this trouble.
My thoughts congeal like slowly cooling lava.
And now what? Balaclava? Oh, forget it.
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Peggy Verral: Everyone Needs Energy
Everyone Needs Energy – Right? Gas? – YaY!
None of us can manage without heatinG.
Each of us is hoping for a nice mild winteR
Remembering bleak times of snow and icE.
Good people, don’t worry, without questioN
Your Govt Respects Everyone’s Needs - (ExpletivE)
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Steven Kent: Baby, It’s Cold Inside
My pet, take off your sweaters, I
Feel amorous this very hour.
These passions rise; I know the power
Is off (the price of heat is high),
But let us choose to celebrate
The day within our downy bed,
With chilly pillows for the head
And blankets for our frigid state.
What's that? You simply won't undress
As long as you can see your breath?
My dear, I fear we'll freeze to death
If you refuse to acquiesce.
Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove,
Though not until you first remove
At least two layers and a glove.
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Will Ingrams: Rise and Fall (almost a Pantoum)
They've plonked another new PM in place,
To wrestle all the problems sparked by Truss,
One sees a nervous smile on Rishi's face
And hopes he might prove ambidexterous
To wrestle all the problems raised by Truss,
The pound, the strife and rifts, the fracking joke,
He'll need to be both ambidexterous
And flexible, yet solid as an oak
The pound limps on, he's killed the fracking joke,
But winter looms and fuel still costs too much,
Though flexible, we can't burn hearts of oak,
So heating schools will take a Midas touch
The winter looms and fuel still costs too much,
One sees a nervous smile on Rishi's face,
To solve it all he'll need that Midas touch.
The Earth, meanwhile, ails further. Our disgrace.
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Mike Mesterton-Gibbons: What crisis? Everything's relative
It's been aeons since I saw my kin,
Who keep saying, "Please visit, we're in" . . .
So this winter I'll stay
Till each shoos me away –
They see me. I don't pay. It's win-win!
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Ken Chester: Energy Crisis Cure
Let some champagne’s ebullient bubbles
Pierce the gloom of these dark winter days
Amd impinge on your current-strapped troubles
With their power to obscure and erase!
So, each glass has your voice getting louder
And your head growing light as meringue
Till the last sets a match to the powder
And the whole thermal issue goes . . . BANG!
Never mind next day’s black bruised prostration
And that taste like slime scraped from the floor –
Apply alcohol-based embrocation,
Internally, just as before.
