The Oldie 'Wheelie Bins' competition by 3rd April
 

This comp is rubbish! (Sorry, that was just too predictable, wasn't it?) ;)

Jayne


The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

Competition no. 188
Wheelie bins have become a dominant element of life in a way that dustbins never managed. So a poem, please, dramatic, lyrical or what you will, called ‘Wheelie Bins’. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries, by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG) or email comps@theoldie.co.uk (don’t forget to include your postal address) to ‘Competition No 188’ by 3rd April.

We are required to have five different bins and have friends who claim their local Council requires them to have seven. I fear things can only get worse! Correct sorting of household rubbish may soon become a degree subject.

Wheelie Bins

Seven chock-full wheelie bins
standing by my gate,
their contents all apportioned
to appease the Nanny State.
And if the Local Council gets
its way there'll soon be eight –
all waiting for collection by
their team that's two weeks late.

Eight chock-full wheelie bins
standing in a line,
a place where urban foxes come
to congregate and dine.
And if the EU interferes
and makes us toe the line
you can bet your bottom dollar that
there'll very soon be nine.

That's good, Martin. We have only two. I feel a bit deprived. I suppose I will have to pretend.

There’s nothing more generic than a local council wheelie bin,
But play it with a pair of sticks, you’ve got a glockenspielie bin.
Employ it playing hide and seek, you make it a concealie bin,
If ugly, you could wear it as an added sex-appealie bin.

You could decide to break it up to make a more piecemealie bin,
Or paint the thing in bluey-green and change it to a tealie bin,
Add bucketfuls of custard and, hey presto, a congealie bin,
Or porridge and you’ve got a massive serving of oatmealie bin.

Stick Batman in (and Robin too), create a Batmobilie bin,
Or burn it down in mid-July, et voilà, a Bastilleie bin.
A dinner eaten off it, it's a place-to-have-a-mealie bin,
Or put it in a tiny a cage to render it a vealie bin.

Stick bees and clocks and socks inside, you’ve made it a surrealie bin,
Exchange it for next door’s at night, your substitute’s a stealie bin,
Or try to guess the contents for a ‘Dealie or No Dealie’ bin,
Or slam your scrotum in it for a make-a-high-pitched-squealie bin.

Rob, that's really good

In the line about Batman, try "a" in place of "your own"; works better for me. You?

It's a syllable short then, Ann. But I remain open to further suggestions.

I agree with Ann. There seems to be an extra syllable, it made me hesitate when I read it.

Great poem!

You're right, Sylvia, you're right. Sorry Ann!

I can’t remember why we fought that fateful Sunday night,
But as for how I choked her, I remember that all right.
The moment that my grip relaxed, I took a kitchen knife
And got to work dismembering the body of my wife.

I quickly set about the task of covering my tracks
And found an almost finished roll of plastic rubbish sacks.
I scooped the bits inside them, then I calmly bundled each
Inside the wheelie bin outside, then got a mop and bleach.

Next morning I was woken by a knock upon the door,
And being woken early is a thing that I abhor.
I querulously told the hi-vis jacket wearing chap
His thoughtless and appalling conduct merited a slap.

Unfazed, he looked me in the eye and said my wheelie bin
Appeared to have the butchered parts of some old lady in,
Then told me, as I bowed my head, guilt-ridden and disgraced,
I should have put them in the one that’s marked ‘organic waste’.

Sadly, I seem to have a number of poems about wheelie bins. I must get out more.

“Things to put in
the brown wheelie bin
include food, garden waste and meat carcasses.”
She followed this guide
when her dear husband died,
so that’s where unfortunate Marcus is.

Rob,
There's a slight error in this line (post #4) which others haven't commented on, so I thought I better had:
Or put it in tiny a cage to render it a vealie bin

You obviously mean Or put it in a tiny cage to render it a vealie bin.

Nice work...

...and, btw Peter, rhyming ''carcasses" with ''Marcus is" is hilarious!

Jayne

Fantastic, Rob. To avoid the double mealie rhyme how about something like:

Or if you are a Fenman a dispose-of-eelie bin?

All this good stuff and only space for three winners! O tempora, o morons!

Thank you for your eagle eye, Jayne, and for your suggestion, Jerome. I shall try and stick an 'eelie' in there somewhere. And a 'Dennis Healie' too, come to think of it.

Wheelie Bin

Wheelie bins, wheelie bins, are you for realie bins?
Open each ravenous crocodile lid.
Wheelie bins, mealie bins, bright orange-peelie bins,
Green, blue and yellow bins do as you’re bid.

Swallow, O swallow and fill up your hollows, those
Gleaming and steaming black dropsical sacks,
Black as my hat and when Phoebus Apollo glows
Red in the East and the dustmen make tracks,

Proffer your coffers with offerings plentiful,
All in due order lined up at my gate.
Oh how I wish there were there were nineteen or twenty full
Wheelie bins, steelie bins standing in state.

Wheelie bins, keelie bins, this is the dealie bins:
Face me, embrace me, effluvial kings.
Squat, squetchie, squealie bins, so touchie-feely bins,
(Phew!) you are truly my favourite things.


I don't much like the ending, I must say.

Great, John. Just have another look at L 11 - gremlins have crept in...

Quite right, Sylvia. Many thanks.

Repetition of there were?

That too, Sylvia. You want ten per cent?

A frothing pint of Adnam's will suffice, John...

It will be in the post.

I kept my aged parents, Nagg and Nell,
in dustbins. With the years, a pungent smell
would emanate each time I raised the lid.
I’m sure they often yearned to make a bid
for freedom, but I knew they’d never risk it,
afraid that I’d withhold their morning biscuit,
or fail to wake them from their evening nap
to give them water and to feed them pap.
So there they stayed, day after hopeless day,
contented in their own despairing way.

But times have changed; supplies of biscuits failed,
and idiotic council laws prevailed.
Some fool decreed, without apology,
that in the interests of ecology,
parental dustbins had to be replaced
by plastic wheelie-bins, marked “Human Waste”.

So that's what the Beckett thing was all about.