Theme for the first competition of 2012 – A New Beginning.
Anything you wish to make of it. The New Year, a new home, a new country, a new love, a new bike, upon being released from prison – you get the idea.
To avoid the somnolence which follows the season’s festivities I would like to set the closing at midnight January 10, 2012 (GMT or equivalent) or when the first female contribution is made, whichever is later 🙂
Boadicea's Chariot 
Hello LW
thank goodness
it’s nothing
too taxing this time.
I’d begged and pleaded
my words were not heeded
If I can find the time
I’ll produce a rhyme.
Here’s one I prepared earlier!
New beginnings
This year I resolve to keep my resolutions.
I’ll put them in my note book,
right at the front, written clear
so every time make a note, never fear,
I will see the resolutions written there.
This year I resolve to keep my car clean,
inside and out, buffed to a shine
and put it away, every day
so that I am not ashamed of the outside grime
or inside crumbs,
(it’s the children’s mess as well as Mum’s.)
This year I resolve to deal with the post,
as it arrives,
I will not put it to one side,
or let it gather in a heap,
I will not delay the decision ‘bin or keep?’
‘respond or ignore?’ any more.
This year I resolve to check my bank balance
as soon as the statements come,
to keep the office sorted,
to earn more and to get fit, just a little bit,
and last, but not least,
I resolve to be less ‘sergeant major-ish’
with the boys,
(or at least not to shout at them when I trip over their toys)
Oh! and I nearly forgot,
I promise to clean out the fish tank
sometime.
So far this year I have written my New Year resolutions
into my new note book. (Tick)
And the car has been washed and polished (Tick)
though the subsequent rain has demolished the sheen,
and I have let the boys eat snacks in the back
so now it needs another major attack, with the vac.
And the post has been dealt with I suppose,
though the addition of a tray marked ‘pending’
has been lending a false impression,
as that’s more or less full, and I’ve lost sight of the electricity bill
(don’t say anything yet, as no-one else knows.)
And my bank statement was easy: it was empty,
and the office, as yet, is not untidier than last year,
and I have attended circuit training once
and been swimming, twice
on that front I’m winning, though shattered.
But I’m earning less,
and I have failed the test in my efforts to become
a better mum, the one resolution that really matters:
I lasted till the 3rd, when I found
Blu-tac ground into the carpet for the second time,
I expect you heard…
that resolution’s in tatters.
Oh, and the fish are bathing in green slime.
This year I resolve to keep my resolutions.
I’ll put them in my note book,
right at the front, written clear
so every time I make a note, never fear,
I will see the resolutions written there.
Right, I’ll ponder on this, LW!
Nym.
I remember yours, but how appropriate for this competition. 🙂
LW, I see the date in your ‘Link’ is !0th January. A new one on me! 🙂
Janus: Capital stuff, It’s the day after the (th and before the !!th.
🙂
After a week
Wide sky, cerulean dyed
Grey-green, upside-down leaves
Tall alien surf breaking on endless empty beaches.
The sun goes round the Wrong Way – Go Back!
Nature strips enclose the track
Semis and B-dubs thunder past.
The Galahs ignore them.
Oversized Magpies dive-bomb the postie,
Harrying ankle-biters in their backflap hats.
“Your shout, you Pommie bastard!”
Check the intonation, the deadpan face
It decodes as friendly, so relax.
Never park on the wrong side, it’s a worse sin than decking your Shelia
(Which is bonza if you’re tired and emotional)
Do they mean it? Surely not!
A hundred things, a thousand words, all cosily familiar?
Oh no, they’re not.
Will I ever get a Guernsey?
I’ve got Buckley’s.
Translation of the final couplet for the Strine-challenged – “Will I ever be accepted? Fat chance.” 🙂
RE-LOCATION
Shoeburyness and Bootle,
Sandown, Seathwaite Fell.
Baddeley Green, Old Worsley,
Goodrich, Whatstandwell .
Brighton, Lighthorne, Flamb’rough,
Darkley, Blackpool, Hyde.
Beck’nham, Poole and Lakeland,
Hillingdon, Braeside.
Lambeth, Shepshed, Penrith,
Fishponds, Ealing, Poole.
Bishops Wick and Monks Cross,
Dedham, Gravesend, Goole.
Bardsey-cum-Rigton beckons.
Leavesden seeks new light.
Eversheds leafy Autumn,
Castle Combe future bright.
PS the format and spacing are intentional, as is. 🙂
Bearsy: Thank you.
My dad always called his heavy oiled wool fisherman’s jersey a Guernsey.
So Buckley is OZ for Hobson? And shouldn’t it be Buckley’s?
Janus: Thank you, sounds like you are moving back to the UK this Summer?
Naeh, just reminiscing! 🙂
G’day LW – Yes, of course it should! 😀
That’s what a Guernsey is, yes. It’s used instead of Jersey, here (in at least two states). But in this context it means that I won’t ever be asked to join the team – you get given a pullover in the team’s colours if you join the team, innit?
No, Buckley’s is not the same as Hobson’s choice.
Hobson’s choice means “take it or leave it”, whereas Buckley’s chance means “none – no chance at all”.
Janus: Good, I was starting to fear for your judgement. 🙂
Bearsy : I’m always delighted when the language we almost share “fills in the gaps”, a single word emerges that is exactly right, not almost right.
There is a word used here “Bupkus” many spellings, from Yiddish, that even the dictionaries have not yet quite grasped. They define it as “Nothing” but that’s a perfect word for nothing. It’s real meaning is “getting nothing when something was expected” As in “What did I get from my kids on my birthday? Bupkus!”
The Rhodesian Army equivalent of a Buckley’s.
‘Excuse me Sgt Major, can I have a pass to hit town this evening?’
‘Piss off gobshite, you’ve got 2 chances.’
Roughly translated – ‘None and f*** all!’
Apologies for being off-topic. Most people think that pidgin English is an uneducated bastardised version of the real thing, but it is in fact very precise. In Melanesian pidgin, for example, the word for “rubbish” is “samting nating”, meaning it is something with a physical presence, but is worth nothing.
As an aside, the first time I landed in Port Moresby there was a broken Coca-Cola vending machine in the arrivals hall with the magnificently label “bagarap” plastered across its front. It’s not rude – that’s the correct word for “out-of-order”. “Em i bagarap tru” means really, really broken, probably beyond repair.
OZ
Sipu: One of my dad’s expressions when planting anything in the garden “It’s got two chances.” Meaning to him, “Either it makes it or it dies.”
LW. You are such a nag! 😉 But in haste:
New Beginnings.
To start afresh, how can one just
Abandon all? Well I’m not fussed,
I’ll leave behind the things which drag:
All rubbish really; such a fag
To cart them round from place to place,
A new beginning, I’ll embrace.
But what about that book I left?
I’m feeling just a tad bereft.
The dish, so perfect for the job
When feeding pasta to a mob.
Luckily, I changed my mind
I didn’t leave them all behind!
with one day to spare:
https://charioteers.org/2012/01/09/a-new-start/
Well done ladies, well worth waiting for……….the poems are good too.
Cheeky!