Jim Hopkins: Runaway poetic performance sparks drugs allegation

The extinguished poet laureate, Mr Jam Hipkins, is vowing to clear his name after a shock positive drugs test sent the literary world reeling.

The sample, taken after Hipkins' stunning victory in the gruelling Tour de Force revealed abnormally high levels of testosterone ("Even more than Mel Gibson," according to one insider) and raises serious questions about the author's stunning come-from-behind win in the arduous poetical marathon.

If a second sample is positive, the plucky laureate may be stripped of his verse place title and forced to return the Yellow Streak, traditional symbol of Tour supremacy in a fiercely competitive world, where competitors are renowned for fighting like cats and doggerels.

Not surprisingly, Hipkins (who wowed the celebrity audience at Dame Silvia Cartwright's farewell bash in Wellington this week when he accidentally spilled two puddings over Ron "Fingers" Mark while deputising for a sick waiter) is vehemently protesting his innocence.

"I've always had magnificent glands," he said today. "My body is a factory. It's always produced huge amounts of testosterone! Truckloads of the stuff! Most weeks, I take a couple of jars in for the accountants. They usually need a top-up.

"My message is clear, iambic what iambic, as we poets say. It's not my fault if I make Dylan Thomas look like a Presbyterian vicar. I don't remember anyone criticising Casanova!"

The laureate (recently romantically linked with Keri Hulme) believes jealous rivals, seized with "understandable" literary envy, may have spiked his Marmite in an attempt to taint both his toast and his triumph.

Sadly, this hasn't convinced those who point to Hipkins' "downright dodgy" success in the hills a day after falling dramatically off the pace with this "utterly wretched" performance in the Limerick Sprint:

The heat rose off her young man
So she cooled herself with her fan
She said, "I burn with desire
Please don't set me on fire!"
He said, "I'm doing asbestos I can!"

However, a mere 24 hours later, the apparently exhausted laureate had "suspiciously" recovered his muse and recaptured his lead with a sensational performance in the gruelling Howl climb, previously dominated by the legendary American, Allen Ginsburg.

Until this year, when the extinguished laureate's savage denunciation of Auckland City's cost increases wowed fans and critics alike:

Little Miss Muffet
Decided she'd rough it
And go and live under some crates
She said, "It makes me feel sick,
So would someone tell Dick
How tuffet is paying the rates!!!"
P.S. There was an old lady who lived in a shoe
And she said, "These rates are crippling me too!
Maybe old Brother Hubbard
Could open his cupboard
And possibly lend me a sou!!!!"

Longtime Tour de Force watchers say it was Mr Hipkins' subtle local reference in the last line that won him the day, inspiring bouffants of applause as the knowledgeable French crowd burst into exultant flames and tossed their bearings in the air.

Amid gleeful cries of, "Magnifique, mon brave" and "Sang-y bon, vous bastille" (a colloquial French term for illegitimate offspring) the poet was given a vin ordinaire and taken on a quick tour of Gay Perry, Brigette Bardot and Dr Bruce Hucker - who'd unexpectedly flown in business class for a three-day junquette or conference.

Following his astonishing poetical feet, Mr Hipkins was never challenged.

He maintained an unassailable lead with a couplet of absolute beauties in the Satire Section, the first addressing the mysterious illness that saw our Foreign Minister rushed into an Australian condoleezza (hospital) after suffering a potentially lethal insect bite while entertaining the crowned heads of Asia with an impromptu karaoke session at the Gee, Mate summit in Koala Jumper:

If a gnat bites a nit
Or a flea Winston P
You really would rather suppose
It would leave in a fit -
That's the gnat, not the nit -
And get straight up a journalist's nose!

Determined to trump his rivals, the laureate followed with this heartwarming family favourite, a ballad loosely based on the ever-popular Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs hit:

Taito, Taito
It's off to work we go
We'll tile your floors
And paint your doors
Taito, Taito, Taito
Taito, Taito
We don't want any dough
Just a whisper clear
In a Minister's ear
Taito, Taito, Taito
Taito, Taito
Don't cause us any woe
If telling lies
Saves the family Thais
Let's go, Taito, Taito

Then blitzed the Field with:

Farewell. Oh noble 5 cent piece
Your size belies your worth
You've had so many uses
That do not depend on girth
You've steadied many wobbly legs
You've loosened many screws
And levered lids and fed those plates
They pass along the pews
So when the PM says you're gone
I really cannot thank her
For you have been more use to me
Than any Re-serve Banker!!!!

Whether such stupefying contributions to poetry's pantheon were naturally produced or the result of performance-enhancing drugs is a matter for the scientists. And while uncertainty surrounds their conclusions, it would be tragic indeed if Mr Hipkins was proven to be as crooked as an All Black lineout.

No one wants any poet to get away with merder but it would be une ende melancholique if this Tour de Force debacle left the extinguished poet laureate stigmatised as an infamous vice verser.