There's no reconcilement for Arabs and Jews... ? No, perhaps not.

Keep 'dogmatic', Rob!

I've learned to my cost that a new pair of shoes
is a snare this poor girl should avoid, even when it
appears a temptation too hard to refuse,
being made by Manolo, Louboutin or Bennett.

I've sprained metatarsals in open-toed sandals;
my first winkle-pickers deformed every toe;
high heels gave me bunions as big as jug handles,
while glow-worms all envy the way my corns glow.

My feet have been bent into varied contortions;
some bits have grown sideways while others turn under.
I now wear thick socks to disguise the distortions,
and even chiropodists goggle in wonder.

I've ruined my feet in the name of high fashion
by following Style to its last, costly letter,
a slave to my erstwhile pedalian passion.
New shoes would be good, but new feet would be better.

Surely a winner, Martin.

Thank you, Rob. I hope it might give you a run for what might well be your money this time!

I won one of my (very few) prizes with a poem on "old shoes", so I'll have to give this a try -- thanks, Jayne.

I have just given myself a terrible fright. I knew I had a poem about shoes and, when I found it, I realised that it referred obliquely to my last (winning) entry to the Oldie and to a poem I workshopped on "met" a while ago. I am obsessed with unlovely feet and isosceles triangles.

I offer it, not to Tessa yet, because it's too long, but to Jayne, who was appalled when I "accused" her of wearing Cr*c*

Lady-shoes

You said you’d fancy me in lady-shoes
and pointed out a pair in a shop-window.
Seeing their sisters in an Oxfam shop
I summoned up the guts to try them on.

Sat on my arse, I squinted in a mirror.
I saw my foot and liked the look of it –
almost en pointe, supported on a pencil,
knobbly isosceles of a weird triangle.

I stood up slowly, peering down, amazed.
Lord, I was tall! Then gravity unnerved me;
I scuttled forward, sat down hastily,
muttered “I’ll take ’em” and slunk from the shop.

I braved them on the pavement. My feet teetered
as I reached for an invisible zimmer
and then leant backwards, overcompensating
with windmill arms and heels that pecked like ducks.

But for your sake I wore them into town.
You smiled when you saw that I’d done it, but
you sucked air when the heels caught in the cracks
and made me stagger like a drunken tart.

Lovely poem.

I'm in danger of losing my marbles.
My wife hasn't any to lose.
She sits up in bed and she garbles.
I'll buy her a new pair of shoes.

My wife has been mad for some years now,
Sedated on bath-salts and booze.
But they only worsen her fears now.
So I'll buy her a new pair of shoes.

There's something about them that calms her,
And lets her return to a snooze.
So I'll find the elixir that charms her:
I'll buy her a new pair of shoes.

She'll stop all the shouting and lowing
When she sees the new box; it imbues
Her with stillness. Now I'd best be going
To buy her a new pair of shoes.

Great stuff. Nico.

Do you suppose Tessa has a sentimental streak?

New Shoes

I had a pair of ten bob boots
When I was but a lad.
They were the finest pair of boots
That I had ever had.

I wore them every day to school
And polished them with dubbin
And every day this was the way,
The rubbing , rubbing, rubbing..

These days I buy designer shoes
Near every other week.
They never need a polish and
They never, never squeak.

But oh that pair of ten bob boots
They meant much more to me.
For we were poor and happy then
In 1953.

Come on all you Oldies. Is ten bob right for a kid's boots in 1953? They could be second hand.

No idea about the old money but it made me smile.