In Competition No. 3300, you were invited to describe in verse a meal of your choice with a well-known poet, living or dead.

The entry was a whopper, with too many star performers to name individually. Hats off, all round. The winners, which include David Silverman’s account of going on a bender with Dante, take £25.

Our breakfast stood – a Loaded Plate –
Of Bacon – crisply Hot
Two Sausages – in bursting skins –
Of mushrooms – a compote
The farmyard’s Gift – two yellow Eggs
Whose faces – shamed the Sun
Fried Bread that sizzled in the Pan –
Hot Sauce upon my Thumb
A dash of fragrant Marmalade
Tomatoes – in a Sea
Of Baked Beans yielding rosy Sauce
For added Piquancy.
Our hunger met – our polished Plates –
Did Satisfaction prove
For we had dined – deliciously
And We could – hardly Move –

Janine Beacham

Last week I went for liquid lunch with Dante.
He started with a straight Bacardi Breezer.
I added lime to mine. He upped the ante:
Before long, grinning like the Mona Lisa,
He’s mixed Prosecco with three shots of Pernod;
By now he’s leaning like the Tower of Pisa,
And loudly shouting chunks out of Inferno –
Whole pages from the sixth and seventh Canti,
Then, knocking back a glass of Tuscan Merlot,
Followed by a bottle of Chianti,
He’s singing ‘Jesus, Thou Art My Redeemer’,
Some thirteenth-century Florentine sea shanty,
And ‘Nessun Dorma’ – all in terza rima –
And then, all hope abandoned, in walks Giotto,
They’re belting out ‘The Girl from Ipanema’,
The two Renaissance men completely blotto.

David Silverman

Come into the parlour, Lord,
For it’s cool in the ice cream zone,
Come in for the sorbet, Lord,
It will chill your occipital bone;
And the butterscotch sundaes have won an award,
And there’s mint in a chocolate cone.
I’ve cautioned the owner, Alf Tennyson’s in,
When he sees a gelato, he’ll swoop.
A milk-blossom float with a hint of pink gin?
O snow-tongued and wild, we will whoop.
Tutti and frutti, the tongue’s twins akin?
Yea, we’ll sware by pistachio gloop,
Lick dairy-free caramel, lips in a spin,
Or larkspur, a quadruple scoop!

Bill Greenwell

Shades of midnight resonating, while I pondered, ruminating
On the meal I knew was waiting, fearing most the Plat du Jour.
As my host was weak and weary, I was loath to make a query:
Was the main dish cassowary, duck or raven? I’m not sure,
‘Thing of evil’ was my theory – on my plate I spied a claw.
Couldn’t stomach any more.
What came next gave me the jitters (washed it down with gin and bitters)
Couldn’t face the raven fritters, or the home-made Quiche Lenore.
As the sickly lamplight guttered: ghastly, grim the words he uttered,
‘Come and dine again,’ he muttered, handing round the petit fours.
Straight I wheeled, as ‘No!’ I stuttered, making for the chamber door,
Feebly croaking ‘Nevermore!’.

Sylvia Fairley’

Beaknose Eliot sets his mind
To scrupulous attentiveness,
Impassive, unsurprised to find
The sandwiches are egg and cress.

As distant as the cratered moon,
The poet sips his anisette.
Somebody drops a coffee spoon
When Sweeney lights a cigarette.

Outside, ursine Arcturus burns,
Irradiating Northern skies.
The mâitre d’ politely spurns
An invite to hypothesise.

He states the customers must choose.
Assailed by doubt and counter-doubt,
The poet settles to peruse
The mysteries within, without.

Basil Ransome-Davies

Invited to lunch with my friend ‘Lewis Carroll’ –
The Reverend Dodgson – immured in his cloisters,
I thought to surprise him by bringing a barrel
Containing six dozen delectable oysters.

He chatted incessantly, one of his habits,
And wondered if tadpoles would grow into sharks,
Bemoaning the shortage of gloves for White Rabbits,
And blaming the dearth on sartorial Snarks.

He spoke of policemen who knitted a truncheon…
His thoughts, it appeared, were beginning to drift.
Believing the moment had come for our luncheon,
I offered my ostreicultural gift.

‘How kind, my dear fellow! But – don’t think me selfish –
I eat only salads prepared by my cousin.
Alas! I’m allergic to all kinds of shellfish.’
He nibbled his lettuce. I ate the six dozen.

Brian Allgar

No. 3303: sex education

Sex education has been in the news lately. You are invited to submit an explanation of the facts of life by a person from the field of fact or fiction who might be deemed a surprising choice. Please email entries of up to 150 words/16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 7 June.