Great title for a poem, don’t you think?
I was accredited with winning second place in the Andover Poetry Competition with this poem today! Yay! It was a front page announcement! Yay!
Oh! Hang on… I didn’t enter the Andover Poetry Competition. How can this be?
I did what anybody else whose other half is a poet would do… blamed him for entering one of his own poems in my name; it’s just the kind of title he’d give to a poem, and just the kind of thing he’d do! Had he actually done this, he would have scored a hat-trick, as two of his poems won first and third places.
The website said that the winning poems are to be recited at the acceptance night this Thursday. What was I to do with only two days to go? Well, I wrote a poem called ‘Girlfriends on holiday eat supper with the polizia’ in my lunch hour, of course. There’s nothing like a tight deadline!
The actual winner is a friend of mine. I’ve emailed her my poem in the hope that she’ll be happy for me to recite it in the open mic section on Thursday.
Congratulations to Graeme Sandford, my gorgeous soon-to-be-published poet partner, and the beautiful Sandra Gordon, whose poem title inspired this…
Girlfriends on holiday eat supper with the polizia
Men in uniform are a weakness of mine
Street corner hooker, bursting with red wine
Tuscan Chianti kisses*, a wink of an eye
Are sent their way; one thing I’m not is shy
Hunger in their loins, I see them looking
Draped around a lamp post, they see me hooking
They laugh, thinking I’m just a drunken tourist
Legs akimbo and my manner boorish
Comrades-in-arms walking down the street
Swaying gently, with no shoes on their feet
Holding themselves up as they holler, “Felizia!
We’re going to have supper with the hunky polizia”
I undrape myself and join the girlfriend conga
Free supper is relief, as we’ve run out of wonga
They’ve hunger in their loins, but I’ve hunger in my belly
And I crave for seeded crackers and some hot pepper jelly
I get antipasti bunny in a curried stew
Bruschetta, mozzarella; that’s Welsh rarebit to you
Pizza Margherita – Margherita? Now you’re talkin’!
This sure beats the streets and the barefoot walkin’
Spaghetti, amoretti – arrows courtesy of cupid
We’re filling up fast, this is getting kinda stupid
Feast of seven fishes with linguine in clam sauce
I don’t think it’s on the menu, but I’m eating like-a da horse
I am sated, I am slumped, I can scoff no mo
Until I’m handed an espresso and some gelato
I’m sobering up now, feel my senses returning
Look around me, feel my face and my heart start burning
A few weeks on, no longer Brit abroad
I’m munching on salami, ‘cause I’m feeling bored
So I start to book again, when my girlfriends shout, “Felizia!
We can’t go back to Italy, remember the polizia!”
I don’t.
*Tuscan Chianti kisses – If this looks familiar, it’s because it’s the second time I’ve used it this week; see recent haiku 🙂
Jane Sandford 