Those of you who complete this month’s puzzle (and I only have Dermot’s word for it that anyone actually attempts these things) might look at the resulting poem and think, ‘Blimey, he’s getting a bit deep here, isn’t he?’ Well, actually, the piece is not about urban decay and misery as the title might suggest, but was inspired by my beloved football team losing to Spurs at the end of last season and failing to reach the Champion’s League. Anyway, we all have enough football-inspired misery to go round now so join the club.

Only every other line rhymes and the lines are of uneven length. The last four lines are just the first four repeated (I suppose it’s more of a song than a poem, strictly speaking) but I have taken out the same words that provide the first four clues. To leave them in would just be too easy and, frankly, you don’t deserve it. Enjoy (or skip to the next bit in the Features).

 

 

City Lost

The ------- is to turn

The looming ----- advancing

The ------- is true and real

The demon ------ are dancing

Fate ------ no son or daughter

Its refusal to -----

And joy is ---- a pebble thrown

By misery’s ---- tide

The streets are paved with --------- hope

---- piece a mirrored shard

And in the forge of every ----

The lonely ------ hard

The ------- is to turn

The looming ----- advancing

The ------- is true and real

The demon ------ are dancing

 

1. Atmospheric conditions sound like ‘If’ (7)
2. Note weaving machine for darkness (5)
3. Call Fay wrong? Wrong (7)
4. Rod she disturbed for massed armies (6)
5. Doesn’t kill extra car parts (6)
6. Stand wager in casualty ward (5)
7. Only right! (4)
8. Elevated hearing greeting (4)
9. Cured fart broken? Broken (9)
10. Every tutor without junction first (4)
11. Spirit heard in South Korean capital (4)
12. Person who cures pigs for knocking stick (6)

 

SOLUTIONS TO CRYPTIC POEM 006: FINCHES AND TODDLERS

If the world would let me

I would tether the moon

To our warm living room

Pull it closer each night

If the world would let me

 

I would harvest the dark

Sort the chaff from the grain

And turn it to rain

For finches to fly through

And roost in the park

If the world would let me

 

If the world would let me

I would infiltrate dreams

With more logical schemes

So the days would delight

If the world would let me

 

I would make every sleep

The birthplace begun

Of a burgeoning sun

For toddlers to pocket

And jealously keep

If the world would let me