Camilla and Charles Commemoration Contest

--Edward

hilzoy has led the charge in highlighting that it's Poetry Month with great posts here, here, here, and here, but I couldn't resist this gem in today's New York Times:

How do you solve a problem like "Camilla"?

If you are Andrew Motion, Britain's poet laureate and the man charged with producing a cheerful commemorative poem about Prince Charles's impending marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles, none of the obvious rhymes - vanilla, flotilla, Godzilla - seem appropriate, somehow.

Nor would you want to dwell on the pre-wedding mishaps that have filled Britons with such unbecoming Schadenfreude in recent days: the panicked confusion over the time and place of the ceremony; the fact that the groom's parents will not attend; the lingering specter of Charles's dead ex-wife, looming like Banquo at the feast.

Poor Andrew actually has until Saturday to put the polish on his poetic panegyric, so, my versifying friends, I propose we help him out. How indeed do you solve a problem like Camilla?

In case Andrew is trolling the blogosphere in search of inspiration, I submit we help him out with a stanza or two that he can use to pad his poem.

Even if Andrew doesn't come by, we'll vote on the entries tomorrow. The winner will be flown first-class to attend the wedding on Saturday (heh...why would we do that to you?). The winner will be celebrated in these very pages.

Here's my entry:

This Time

The pomp will likely be less pompy
There is the matter of respect
But from the rumors I expect
The honeymoon will still be rompy.

Comments

[Macallan]

A horse
Is a horse
Of course
Of course
Unless it's the famous mistress wed

[Edward]

LOL

---Mr. Ed

[CaseyL]

O Camilla! What can it mean
That you've gone from Paramour to Sorta-Queen
With "Rottweiler Homewrecker" in between?

O Camilla! Will the romantic thrill flee and be gone,
Once you're the lawfully wedded bon-bon
Of a man who once wished to be your tampon?

O Camilla! Your wedding's a win
For all the high-bred yet homely
And aristocratically dim!

[Freder Frederson]

How about:

Oh Camilla, oh Camilla, say, have you met Camilla?
Camilla The Tattooed Lady.
She has eyes that folks adore so,
and a torso even more so.
Camilla, oh Camilla, that encyclo-pidia.
Oh Camilla The Queen of Tattoo.
On her back is The Battle of Waterloo.
Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus too.
And proudly above waves the red, white, and blue.
You can learn a lot from Camilla!

My apologies to Groucho Marx.

[Mo MacArbie]

Oh Camilla, Camilla, my bounteous Camilla
Of thy allure hath Brittney not one scintilla
Let me carry you off to some Italian villa
And make like Fay Ray and that nasty gorilla

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Test Please Ignore

[Tad Brennan]

"Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies oer the unbending corn and skims along the main."

For some reason, Pope thought that the perfect aural embodiment of speed and swiftness in verse (in contrast to "when Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw", where I find it much easier to agree with him that "the line too labors, and the words move slow").

Not sure the current Camilla is a great example of *any* kind of swiftness....

[Anarch]

Test Please Ignore

I don't get it...

[Jesurgislac]

a tampon - used once,
flushed away, a princely dream
oh Charles, be Mooncup.

[Wilfred]

I think it's a typo. Sebastian must mean 'text ignore'.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Anarch, you probably shouldn't admit that you don't get modern poetry.

What? The painting is upside down? Ummm, we were deconstructing the objectivity of viewer experience when connecting with an artist's so called 'point of view'.

:)

Ok, I admit it. There was something wrong with the comment system and I was testing it out.

[Edward]

the comment system should be better now...typepad said they were having spamming issues but they've been resolved.

e

[Wilfred]

To my tampon girl who never rinses,
Might I be a Knight to my shining new Princess?,
I'm yellow with jaundice to bring you the banana,
Since i screwed up my marriage to the wondrous Diana.

[Paul]

Yon bride is lovely, the Royal groom dapper;
Quickly, look! Then yield, Fame, to Major Tom Crapper.

Pass on, Prince, take thine Amazon, Camilla;
and all our blessings on this Royal "Thrilla in Manilla."

[Paul]

"and all our blessings on this bridal "Thrilla in Manilla." "

[Macallan]

"and all our blessings on this bridal "Thrilla in Manilla."

I earlier rejected the 'Thrilla in Camilla' for obvious reasons.

[Edward]

Good luck to you Bonnie Prince Charlie!
I'm sure to your view she's not gnarly,
But if I were her squire,*
The deed would require
Three gallons of fermented barley.

*Imagine someone else offering this... ;p

[Jackmormon]

I vote for CaseyL's, since I cheated by using the old skool make-the-rhyme-easier-by-changing-the-form-of-the-name trick. Anyway.

On the Occasion of Prince Charles Marrying Lady Camille, Duchess of Something.

For your royal(ish) wedding, dear Lady Camille,
All the hacks are tinkering in rhyme,
For the poor poet laureate's job is to shill
And we all know he'll be paid by the line.

Pity your praisers, oh lady Camille!
Your romance (unlike poetry) reflects the times,
And 'tis hard of affairs, even old, to trill,
Even if this poetaster has absolved you of crime.

Your wedding will be sumptuous, Queen(?) Camille,
And the tabloids might give you one moment to shine.
In comparision with Diana, you may lack some frills,
But I'm sure that everything will go just fine.

Don't expect that they'll cheer--tho' praps it's deserved--
For the thought in most minds is "Who'll be the third?"

[sidereal]

Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall
Ennobled by a Benz and a concrete wall
The union's not morganatic
And we hear she's autocratic
So they better start bowing in Whitehall

[Sue Starmes]

Charles and Camilla deserve each other, they are coniving and ruthless and good for no other. What plans they are cooking up at this moment are to horridous for anyone to discover. They laughted when Princess Dinna died but they shall soon discover that what ever the future holds for them would make anyone shutter.