In Competition No. 3309, you were invited to compose a poem starting with the last line of any well-known poem and ending with its first, the new poem being on a different subject from the original.

Max Ross’s sonnet, reflecting on the demands of the task in hand, earns a commendation:

The task for which I now am all too weak
Consumes a wealth of hours as I implore
Hundreds of poets to give me what I seek
And sometimes I decide to search no more…

As does Bob Trewin’s entry, which uses Dylan Thomas’s line – ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’ – to highlight the challenging consequences, for some, of net zero. The winners earn £25 each.

Though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster,
Defeat can be rewarding all the same.
Venality creates temptations vaster
Than fairly playing up to play the game.

The Black Sox scandal of 1919
Exposed finagling on the baseball field.
Eight losing players were pronounced unclean;
The fix succeeded, but somebody squealed.

The opportunities to cheat remain:
A few dropped catches, a missed penalty,
Deliberate mistakes… and then again,
The Moloch of the betting industry.

You may earn sporting kudos on the pitch
But filthy lucre makes the heart beat faster.
Should orchestrated failure make you rich,
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Basil Ransome-Davies/‘One Art’

And the fire and the rose are one
she said, the fire and the rose are one.
When a canker shows on the rose
it’s dead, from the darkest root
to the head, she said, and all that grows
in the bed is fed to the easy flame
or your sin will spread from shoot
to fruit like nameless dread
from petal white to red.

When is the time for fire, I said,
when must my blood be shed?
Midwinter spring is right she said
when a sempiternal smoke is bred
out of an autumn hope that’s fled
from early blight and mildew treason:
midwinter spring is its own season.

Nick MacKinnon/‘Little Gidding’

In England’s green and pleasant land
I like to ramble now and then,
And, when I hear a walk is planned,
I always book a slot with Jen.
For ages she has done my feet,
(And seen, and smelled much worse, I’m sure.)
Chiropody’s a real treat –
She is my after-rambling cure.

When in her chair, I sometimes doze,
And, in a semi-conscious haze,
See Jen, in medieval clothes,
Treat Saxon feet in far-off days.
Jen’s predecessors walked the earth,
With clippers, solving foot-care crimes…
It’s good to think they proved their worth,
And did those feet in ancient times.

C. Paul Evans/‘Jerusalem’

Through Eden took their solitary way
The Cassidy and Sundance of St Mawes,
The Cornish Clyde and Bonnie of their day:
Young Eve and Adam, breaking all the laws:
‘Keep off the grass’, ‘Don’t pick fruit’, ‘Jam then cream!’
They broke into the Biome, cased the joint –
Then implemented their nefarious scheme:
They robbed the Project gift shop at gunpoint;
Then stole a hoard of rare exotic fruit:
Papayas, precious persimmons, lychee,
Crammed kumquats and kiwanos in the boot,
Robbed every bank from Truro to Newquay.
O men of Kernow, sing and tell the tale
Of how they stashed offshore their tax-free loot,
Of Eve and Adam, hiding on the Isle
Of Man’s first disobedience – and the fruit.

David Silverman/‘Paradise Lost’

In an eternal night
They hope, they pray, they fight;
They die but nonetheless
Believe in their success.
And we who watch their pain
Take pity on Ukraine
And as some recompense
Send arms for their defence.
Across the sea in France
Anarchic youngsters dance
And in town after town
Order comes crashing down.
We thank what gods there be
That from such strife we’re free
For now … no war, no riot
Here where the world is quiet.

Frank McDonald/‘The Garden of Proserpine’

Jenny kissed me.
Sex, I deemed, would be consensual
Though written contracts seemed essential.
Their facts were writ in white and black.
She’d kissed me first, I’d kissed her back,
Consenting adults, willing lovers
There beneath her duvet covers;
As watertight as contracts get,
Unassailable. And yet
The Prosecution argued strongly
That I had treated Jenny wrongly
And must accept how she now saw
What happened forty years before
Was all that mattered under Law.
Now here in Belmarsh I regret
Jenny kissed me when we met.

Martin Parker/‘Jenny Kiss’d Me’

No. 3312: Cooking the books

You are invited to supply a contribution to a book of recipes invented by fictional characters. Entries must be for the Carrollean, Dickensian or Shakespearean sections. Please email entries of up to 150 words/16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 9 August.