The Judges Have Nowhere To Go

Yes, so much for that.

That was wonderful Arthur, says Young Dawkins, but unhelpful. You have left the judges nowhere to go. Is there anyone else here who might care to act as our sacrificial poet?

 No one in the audience wants to. Until...

I'll do it, says Ageless. I feel a poem welling up inside me.

Thank you Ageless, says Young Dawkins. Let's hear what you can do. Fellow poets, please welcome to the stage Ageless Lobster!

Ageless drags himself up to the stage, and begins:

How Everything Has Gone Wrong

No I have not been eaten.
But everything else has gone wrong

The Yellow Jersey came back to my seat
He said Arthur had threatened to kill me

I was scared. I took off my bee outfit
I left it on the seat.

The Yellow Jersey said
Arthur had the gift.
What gift? I said
The gift of the gab?
No said the Yellow Jersey
The macarons I was giving to Wiggo.

Give him something else
I said, helpful.
What though? he asked.
He looked at me. I was naked.
I looked like a lobster, I knew.
Not me, I said
No, he said.  As if he'd want you.

He said he would buy a cooked lobster from Harrods
When he got off in London.

I got off the train without my bicycle
Just me and no clothes.
So I could still follow Arthur

He went looking for Paul
He stole a knife.
He came here
But I got here first.

Arthur.
Don't kill me
I'm dying to see my Beloved.
My promised reward
O life is hard and unfair
Arthur gets the top score from all of the judges
and Ageless gets nothing at all.

Ageless breaks down in floods of false tears.

There is muted clapping. The judges scribble hard in their notebooks.

Ageless gets a very low score.

Excellent, says Young Dawkins. That's more like it. Now to get on with the Slam...

He is about to introduce the first poet, Anna Percy, when a loud moan erupts from the basket on the seat beside Belle et Bonne.