The Oldie "The Ring" competition by 27th May
 

Here's a nice competition (I won a different comp two years ago on this topic. I wonder if I can find it... and try it again?)

Jayne


Competition No 203
Tessa Castro

The Olympic bell is too loud to ring, we are told. A poem called ‘The Ring’, please, on bells, bands, boxing, phones or what you will. Maximum 16 lines.
Entries by post (The Oldie, 23-31 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PA) or email comps@theoldie.co.uk – (don’t forget to include your postal address) to ‘Competition No 203 by 27th May.

This may be a bit historically obscure, but the Avar hoard really was called the Ring.

The Avars were a Hunnic people,
Fond of war and plunder:
A nomad horde with bow and sword
To rend the foe asunder.

They warred for plundered treasure,
For the glittering of gold.
They'd pillage every village
For as much as they could hold.

They took it to their treasure house:
They took it to The Ring.
That hoard of gold in days of old
Could humble any king.

They fought for every scrap of it
And brought all they could bring.
For treasure was the measure
Of the glory of the Ring.

Post removed: doggerel.

Nice one Nico. Here's a refurbishment. Phoebe has a poem too, but she's not showing anyone.

The Ring

Softly falling summer evenings,
College windows, hurrying scholars,
Gin and tonic, dreaming boathouse,
Bells of Oxford pealing, pealing,

Ancient buildings softly falling,
Golden scholars, autumn shadows,
Sunshine punting down the chapels,
Bells of Oxford pealing, pealing,

Golden money, stolen kisses,
Crumpled pillows, broken bindings,
Tangled, naked, sunshine children,
Bells of Oxford, pealing, pealing,

Scudding rainclouds, hurrying figures,
Golden children, weeping mirrors,
This year, next year, sometime, no time,
Bells of Oxford pealing, pealing.

That's very nice. Like a mezzotint. I stayed for interviews in a room under Tom tower so the pealing is still in my ears. That rhythm! I do like that.

Good God Nico, are you going to the House. Don't do it. Go to Merton. Easier to climb into for a start.

I am. Merton sadly seemed too studious for me to get in. I've heard tales of people being flayed with the cat for getting below a first in mods. Besides, I like the idea of bulldogs.

Different in my day. Lots of idle buggers. I belonged to a cricket team called the Fairies which drank a whole lot. I suppose we must have played cricket too.

The ring
 

When I was just a callow youth, and you ... a sweet young thing;
I held it as a simple truth, my chimes you'd always ring.

One nervous day so long ago, my twenty second spring;
I ponied up my hard-earned dough to buy your wedding ring.

I still recall our wedding day, on Uncle Arthur's farm;
We took our first roll in the hay, and how I loved your charm.

The ladder which life is about loomed high when we were young;
United, we set boldly out, ascending rung by rung.

Though now we both are old and gray ... Remember olden times
When we would frolic in the hay? Now, still you ring my chimes.

The Ring
 

Erik, I think this is a worthwhile entry for this comp. The Oldie is getting more selective with its winners and demands a bit more poetic imagination these days and this would fit their bill.

But I'm not sure about that word "pedals". (Maybe because I'm having trouble with it myself at the moment in the context of a different poem!). I can't help thinking you mean "petals" ie bits of flowers, and if so perhaps morning should be "mourning" - ie grief for the loss of the serviceman.

But, if I have got the wrong idea entirely and you wish I'd stop being an irritating pedant, the phrase you're looking for is "bugger off".

Ann,
In fact, I meant to have "mourning petals", but a mistaken spelling somehow escaped my notice. Sometimes my spell-checker sees a phrase like "mourning petals" and thinks I must have meant "morning petals" due to its contextual reference bank; sometimes this causes a mistaken correction I miss when my attention is divided among other things at the time. So thank you much for your comment.
Best,
Erik

I think it's a nice poem, Erik, but I don't care for the word 'viewed' in line 4. It has a slightly archaic feel about it and it is too obviously there to rhyme. IMO of course.

Hi, John. I hear you, I was least sure about "viewed" myself, so I am evaluating several alternatives. Thanks.

Ring (correct)
 

Our floating fortress bid bells rudely cry.
No church's silver toll that stills the mind,
We dash on deck, and lift guns bravely blind;
Straight, a shot's thunder breaks the frozen sky.
War proves a cycle: time revolves thus round
The dear remembrance of soft wedding bells
And the shrill horn, its stubborn anthem swells
As left and right, the volleys' bursts rebound.
I often wish to hear no brass again
That wears your ear and echoes war’s alarms,
But those that sing when sailors meet the arms
Of sweethearts and the shore receives her men.
Bells ring should I hold purple blooms and medals,
Or come home bathed with white and mourning petals.
g

I'm not sure how flexible The Oldie comps are regarding form.
Most go for metrical rhyming, and I suppose they must be the ones most likely to do well, but I hope other forms and styles aren't excluded.
My idea for The Ring - taken a bit literally - fits into the ghazal.


Three maidens cavort in the Rhine; they guard their gold, possess no magic ring.
An ugly dwarf sacrifices love for gold, is beguiled to forge a magic ring.

The Gods’ judgement on sibling incest results in a warrior daughter lost.
Asleep atop a fiery rock, she craves mortal love above a magic ring.

A witless, fearless hero slays a dragon, learns the songs of forest birds.
A waking kiss, love, deceit, fire and death; who now will lust for a magic ring?

Riding Pegasus to Valhalla, I seek the Gods, or gold, or maiden.
No Wagnerian thing can I find to sate my desires, don’t crave a magic ring.

I ogle maidens cavorting in the Rhine, showing me their glittering gold.
Driven by lust, I lose all for jewelled kisses, evermore covet a magic ring.

Sorry Alan. Does anyone else remember Bugs Bunny as Brunnhilde with yellow plaits and a stupendous bed?

I sent off a Wagner Ring poem a couple of days ago, but I'm not posting it because I've caught Brian's paranoia. Wish I'd seen Bugs Bunny.

There's no Brian in this thread(?)
And no cause for paranoia, anyway, Bug Bunny or not.
Or is there? Should I, still a newbie, be worried?

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...E65E&FORM=VIRE

The Fat Wabbit Sings

I can never see Brunhilde otherwise. Wascaly Wabbit or bust.

Alan, Brian deleted something on another thread "for reasons of paranoia" - perhaps it's the possible risk of posting online counting as publication, or somesuch, but then again that's why we have Deep Drills, to avoid that, and the Oldie doesn't mind. Maybe I've misunderstood.

I see. Thanks Nicholas.
So, presumably, someone has had a poem rejected because of posting here.

Brilliant! Thanks.

I suppose. I don't think the Oldie minds though. Poems on these threads often win there.

The Ring
 

Unpolished gems, no ray on pride bestow;
And latent metals innocently glow:
Here stored rings my great grandsire had to trust
We would keep sacred, lay bequeathed to dust.
Rich in refulgent robes, now few shall be
When most hide lustre under lock and key.

We peek the awkward grace of sparklers,
Snigger, shut up again in attic drawers
To hush his pocket-watches' ticks and tocks:
What stays me is not their old English box
(Half gold and half enamel nécessaire),
Not public office symboled with a flair,
Not that they ring the time, but all, they show
Essentials in a time we cannot know.
I glean the well-dressed, upright gentleman
Great grandad was and how he thought back then.
s

***deleted***

Deleted ditty.

The early British converts stared aghast
At Knowlton Henge in Dorset and decreed
The monument a blasphemy. Too vast
To level out, these pious folk agreed
To topple all its megaliths instead
For fear that men might come to reappraise
The word that blessed Augustine had spread
And re-embrace their former pagan ways.
They raised a temple of their own design
Inside the earthen ring already there
To further neutralise this heathen shrine
With wholesome Christian liturgy and prayer.
The church collapsed, but still that bank of sod
Outside its shell endures. So much for God.