In Competition No. 3288, you were invited to supply a sonnet on an embarrassing ailment. To make space for as many winners as possible, I’ll keep it brief: in an amusing and accomplished entry, the sonnets below nosed ahead of the pack and earn their authors £15.

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
Or make excuse to end our conversation;
They turn away when I begin to speak
Or greet me with a look of consternation.
I wondered many times about the cause
Nor could I fathom why I should feel shame;
I asked myself why I got no applause
When I said something, but no answer came.
And then one day a visit to the doc
Revealed the cause of each departing friend;
The fetid breath I breathed produced a shock
And brought a meeting to a speedy end.
My whole life stinks since that grim diagnosis
Of being ever cursed with halitosis.
Frank McDonald

Earth has not any malady more foul,
No, not ‘down there’ where all remains unseen:
Intestines, liver, gallbladder and spleen,
Stomach, kidneys, pancreas and bowel;
The ailment which impels me now to write
This sad Petrarchan sonnet, full of woe,
Tells of a flaw to everyone on show,
A clearly visible, unseemly sight,
Uniquely large that sits there to my shame
Like some unsightly ruddy-pinkish rose,
That seemingly from out of nowhere came
And which to one and all I must expose,
A curse with an unpalatable name
To wit a fibrous papule on the nose!
Alan Millard

Not ugly, smelly, but those swollen veins
Are normally a subject one avoids:
The itchy bum, the awful rectal pains,
The dread unmentionable haemorrhoids.
Yet far from being an ailment of shame,
Those irritable lumps should have their due:
Forget the playing fields of Eton’s claim,
Those veins won us the field at Waterloo.
To win a battle, generals must, of course,
See the position of each regiment;
But Bonaparte could not sit on his horse,
Because of his anal embarrassment.
The Duke of Wellington was wreathed with smiles,
And all because Napoleon had piles.
Nicholas Hodgson

No lips my lips may kiss, and this is why;
a clutch of blisters, brewing up a scab,
erupts, no matter what meds I might dab;
a cold sore, like a dark encroaching fly
upon my face, to draw each wincing eye.
Damned herpes simplex, why is there no lab
that can destroy you, no vaccine, no jab
to kill this creeping virus, make it die?
No toothpaste, icepack, remedy may block
my bloodstained blotch, my vilely visual blight.
These lips, the crimson cords of Bible song,
now mottled. Vampire-like, I shun the light,
lest this disfigurement appal and shock.
Out, out, damned spot. To hell, where you belong.
Janine Beacham

When I consider how I spent my days
Pretending there was nothing wrong at all:
I’d make excuses in so many ways,
And pray that people wouldn’t come to call.
But, if they knocked, I’d shuffle to the loo,
And loiter while my wife told whitish lies.
I was in pain, but no one ever knew
How often I would utter anguished cries.
That’s all behind me, and, in times to come,
I’ll joke about the subterfuge I used
To hide that angry blister on my bum.
Embarrassment’s passé, now we’re amused
By talk of things from which we’d once demur –
My blister would be almost de rigueur!
C. Paul Evans

When I considered how I’d caught the clap
I asked my boss who said that she’d had Lee
on floor 14 whose wife went with a chap
she met at salsa who’d done Marjorie
while she was having quite an overlap
with Jim once he was granted his decree
from Beryl who was known to set her cap
at anything in trousers principally
the Aussie Bruce who liked his slip slop slap
in Adelaide who was inclined to see
that girl who loved that girl whose worst mishap
was to have got a nasty dose from me
and this was how I’d almost gone a year
before I caught again my gonorrhoea.
Nick MacKinnon

When I consider how my nights are spent
Trudging the stairs to satisfy my need,
Dreaming of all the pain that I have peed –
No wonder is it that I’m discontent:
And worse, how often it’s a non-event,
A wasted trek. At breakfast, it’s decreed
That I tallied seven visits. I concede.
They’re gambling on me, that is evident.
‘One day,’ I say, raw colour in my cheek,
‘These early, hurtful hours will be yours.
You too will dream of catheters. Your fate
Is ineluctable. You’ll spring a leak,
Obedient to nature’s ancient laws:
One midnight moon, you too will micturate.’
Bill Greenwell

There used to be a lot of people whom
I called my friends, and they would often visit.
But now they only want to meet on Zoom,
and they seem flustered when I ask, ‘Why is it?’
They tell me it’s not personal, that I’m
just being oversensitive, and yet
I haven’t seen them in a long, long time
except for glimpses on the internet.
Today, alas, I learned the reason why.
My doctor, when I saw her, held her nose
and stood across the room, and heaved a sigh.
I never will forget the words she chose.
Indeed, her words could not have been succincter.
‘It seems you suffer from a leaky sphincter.’
Robert Schechter

No. 3291: Food for thought

You are invited to provide a profile of a well-known person (please specify) in which their qualities are compared to items of food or drink. Email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by noon on 15 March.