In Competition No. 2875 you were invited to submit a poem about an unlikely aphrodisiac. Thanks are due to that legend of the comping world Stanley J. Sharpless, whose ‘In Praise of Cocoa — Cupid’s Nightcap’ gave me the idea for this challenge.

How confessional your entries were, who can say, but I liked Adrienne Parker’s account of an erotic encounter with a washing machine. The winners take £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to John Whitworth, who points out that, unlikely as it might seem, we have it on Shakespeare’s authority that the potato is an aphrodisiac.
 

Casanova loves potato.
Chips are what he gives his chick.
Though she be as chaste as Plato
Sizzling chips will do the trick.
 
What a rhizome, steal some, buy some,
Mother Nature’s passion fruit!
Guys from Cuba prize that tuber.
Senoritas dig that root.
 
Monks in cloisters swear by oysters.
Fatties crave a chocolate bar.
Horn of rhino? You and I know
Here’s a food that’s better far.
 
Slice ’em, mash ’em, dice ’em, smash ’em,
Spuds are just the stuff for ladies.
Cold as ice girls, far too nice girls —
Soon they’ll be as hot as Hades!
John Whitworth
 
If you’re no rouser, more a wilter,
Don’t look for aid from some quack philtre;
When the will itself is flaccid
It won’t be helped by magic acid;
It needs no rare exotic unction
To spark a passionate conjunction.
What makes a laggardly libido
As fired up as a primed torpedo
Is just to feed the dormant beast
With Nature’s raising agent — yeast.
As an extract in a jar
It’s Aphrodite’s avatar.
So lay past failure’s lowering ghost
By sharing Marmite on hot toast.
Its taste’s divisive, so they say,
But it unites us in this way.
W.J. Webster
 
When I first dated Gloria
I took her out to dine
In a funky little trattoria
With magic food & wine.
 
She ate and drank like Orson Welles
But after, at my flat,
Repelled all my seductive spells
By playing a dead bat.
 
The Arsenal back four of old
Could not have kept it tighter.
Her quim, it seemed, was Fort Knox gold.
I never could ignite her
 
Until I dressed, one Halloween,
As Picard from Star Trek,
When, smoothly as a limousine,
Her knickers hit the deck.
G.M. Davis
 
No oyster, sensual balm nor potion,
Potent herb from Eastern arbour,
Embrocation, oil nor lotion
Amplifies my amorous ardour.
No wacky baccy, potted plants
Nor musky, lusty scents from France,
Romantic mantras, tantric chants
Will put me in a lover’s trance.
No chance will yucca make me pucker;
Catkins make me sicker more;
Hempen hash gives me a rash
And speed just makes us bicker more.
No opium poppy sends me soppy;
Ginseng makes me sad and blue.
All other trees just make me sneeze:
My aphrodisiac is yew.
David Silverman
 
At first she tends to shudder when she sees me coyly nude.
No worries! I’ve a stratagem that gets her in the mood.
When she was just a teenager, her parents kept a farm,
And she knew a local yokel with a certain rustic charm
He wooed her in the rural way, and took her, not to bed
But to where they kept the tractors, just beside the chicken shed.
Since then the little chookie noise a hen makes as it pecks
Reminds her irresistibly of sweet and lovely sex.
I therefore start a-chooking, gently, gently, cause I know
The sound is going to stir her, till she tingles head to toe
She’ll be in the mood for clucking, and we’ll do the thing we do
And we’ll finish it together with a ‘Cock-a doodle doo!’
George Simmers
 
A coconut with lusty, rounded shell
Both smooth and rough with half a hint of hair
Makes my imagination hot as hell
And generates a joy too much to bear.
Then split apart its whiteness can expel
Flavours of fun that wait my lingual care.
I raise it to my lips, a tempting treasure,
And hesitate before my tongue tastes pleasure.
 
I’m mad and bad, of course, but who can blame me
For making use of my imagination?
Though prudish gossips preach and seek to shame me
Where is the harm in mental masturbation?
No foolish law or moral code will tame me;
My life has been one long ejaculation.
A coconut can make me hard as iron
Which, after all, is what they want from Byron.
Frank McDonald

No. 2878: new year haiku

You are invited to submit a poem composed of three haikus that looks forward to the year ahead. Email entries to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 8 December. Please note the earlier-than-usual deadline, which is due to our seasonal production schedule.