The Oldie ''New Shoes" Competition by 6th March
 

Now this is more like it.
I love shoes, but daren't tell you how many pairs I own! :eek:
I see they've now dropped the fax number for submissions (did anyone actually ever send their entries that way... or by carrier pigeon, perhaps?? :rolleyes:)

Jayne


Competition No 187
by Tessa Castro

Some people can’t get enough of them; others hate the whole process of buying and breaking them in.
A poem called ‘New Shoes’, please. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries, by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG) or by email comps@theoldie.co.uk
to: Competition No. 187 by 6th March. Don’t forget to include your postal address.

If I seem quick off the mark it's because I sneaked a peak at the new Oldie in Smiths earlier.


You’re feeling depressed after watching the news;
There’s no reconciling the Arabs and Jews.
They both have intractable, dogmatic views.
What is to be done? Buy a new pair of shoes.

Your son’s mugging tramps for a swig of cheap booze,
Your daughter’s resplendent in facial tattoos,
Your missus is now taking lovers in twos.
You know what you need? Why, a new pair of shoes.

You’re no longer free to pay visits to zoos
(They found you at Whipsnade without any trews,
Molesting unfortunate bush kangaroos),
But who can deny you a new pair of shoes?

Get flip-flops for comfort or clogs to amuse,
Get wellies or army boots, brogues, Jimmy Choos.
There’s nothing like footwear for beating the blues,
So cheer yourself up with a new pair of shoes.

Nice one, Rob!

I frequently cheer myself up with a new pair of shoes :D

Jayne

The Oldie did this one four years ago. Unaccountably I failed to win. I shall try the same verse again and trust Tessa has forgotten. Oldie quiz indeed. Do they suppose we are weak-witted as well as old. Pshaw!

I thought it seemed familiar, John.

And just in case anyone's not sure what John means by:

Oldie quiz indeed. Do they suppose we are weak-witted as well as old. Pshaw!

it's a reference to my rant on "The Oldie Desert Island Diary results" thread, here.

Jayne

It was No 147, 40 comps ago, in Jan-Feb 2012. Tempted to resubmit 8 of the 16 lines that didn't make it that time, in view of the reduction in space and Tessa's senior moment. I hope she's not fighting a vicious turf war under the new regime.

We may be seeing one of the last competitions before it's all replaced by 'spot the difference' pictures.

"They both have intractable, dogmatic views."

Mightn't "differing" both a) scan better than "dogmatic" and b) not be as condemnatory and broad-brush, Rob?

The Arabs who live within Israel also tend to be fairly well "reconciled" with the Jews, but this is a lesser point...

I only mention this because these two lines seem to mar an otherwise good poem with politics.

Dunno, Nicholas. 'Differing' hardly seems strong enough a word to describe decades of mutual hostility. Anyway, I'm hardly trying to make a political point here, I'm just looking for an excuse to make feeble jokes out of contrived rhymes. Although if I were trying to make a political point, I'd be more than happy to strike a condemnatory note.

I shall ponder, though.

I think you've got a goodie there, Rob.

Your daughter is covered in facial tattoos? plastered?

Doing horrible things to the bush kangaroos?

The definit article in front of Arabs is only there for the metre. I can't work out how to mend it though.

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.

Ten bob sounds feasible, John.

In my teens I always waited for the sales and bought two new pairs of shoes every January and July. They used to cost one pound, nine shillings and eleven pence a pair, or, more familiarly to us Oldies, £1 9s. 11d. Tuppence change from three quid, for two pairs!!! Ah, those were the days :D

Jayne

Thank you, Jayne.

New Shoes
(from the ancient Greek)

He said the boys were going for a sail.
Two decades later, turns up at the door.
In all that time he never calls. No mail.
Arrives with flowers. Wonders why I swore.

It turns out he’s been shacked up with Calypso,
turns out he’s been Circe’s “special friend”.
Oh he has class! A witch and then a nymph-o,
(translator: skipping words that might offend)

To think I stayed at home all pure and chaste,
repelling well-hung suitors every night.
So many bronze-skinned men all gone to waste.
I would have had them all, just out of spite.

I sold his treasures, booked myself a cruise.
Then packed my bags, went out and bought new shoes.


--
I don't think L8 works. It's out of keeping with the rest of the poem, I'm working on a fix. I'm a little unhappy/unsure regarding the tense of 'swore', I think it should be historic present, but maybe it does it work as past (I try to convince myself).

New Shoes
 

The bureaucrats of tinkle-town
might well decree the time has come
when all newfangled prosody
must stick to metric feet
or best be shed;

after which we might surmise
that shod is what they really meant
but some old spiteful spellcheck sprite
had intervened to put the boot
in cobblers' hopes of better times
ahead.

Just to agree with Jayne about the cost of shoes.

For the comp. its called New Shoes - but I'll keep it as SALE TIME.


“What am I bid?” the PM huckster cries,
as off-shore funds flit briefly ’cross the room,
from phantom figures flown from non-dom skies
to clutch at power, like some sweaty groom.
Here dressed-down wealth eschews black ties, champagne
and ball-gown glitz, as if the smart set’s suits
were camouflage enough to mask the pain,
lashings of cash exact from those, whose boots
these greedy bidders are not fit to loose.
And well-washed dosh, ’neath table tops, ashamed,
just like some stockinged toe, without excuse,
seeks members insufficiently defamed.
One scooped a May day, buying soles in town;
new shoes or old, it’s heels that grind us down.

John, you old sentimentalist, you!
Nicholas, L15 looks (to me) to be a syllable too long. Can't quite get it to fit the meter.

When the naked Swedish hooker
who, in truth, was quite a looker
walked up and down my spine in new stilettos,
it was so excruciating,
yet supremely liberating;
completely injudicious,
though incredibly delicious,
like when you wolf down two or three Cornettos.

But the joy it generated
sadly was not replicated
when my wife, as in some film of Zeffirelli’s,
threw off pinny, blouse and girdle,
(as the milk began to curdle)
and removed her massive panties
and some other none-too-scanties,
then broke my backbone in her brand new wellies.

New Shoes


I’d bought some shoes a size too small.
My friend was scathing: “How”, said Paul,
“Could you end up with shoes too tight?
When I buy shoes, I get it right!”
He raised his feet, and pointed smugly.
“See?” he smirked, “They fit me snugly.”
“Paul”, I said, “No doubt they’re fine,
But one’s size ten, the other’s nine.”
“Good Lord!” he muttered, “So they are.
Now, how on earth? … That’s most bizarre.”
Incredulous, I stared again.
“What’s more”, I told him, “One is plain,
The other has a stitched design.”
He took a sheepish sip of wine.
“They’re not a pair, I must admit -
But still, they’re both a perfect fit.”

All looks fine to me, Matt, just as it is. And a novel take on the theme!