The Oldie: Three Legs
 

Here is The Oldie Competition No. 111 a bit late but there's still plenty of time.

A poem called 'Three Legs', please, written in three stanzas. Maximum eighteen lines.

Entries to 'Competition' No 110' by 8th May. email comps@theoldie.co.uk Don't forget to include your postal address.

I have already despatched a three stanza poem I had already written which (roughly) fits. For some reason I believe The Oldie allows you two shots (Speccie allows multiple submissions) so I may try with a custom built effort. I suppose after my last Speccie effort I'm in no position tosay don't be indecent, but I think The Oldie might be more polite than the Speccie. I only think. I don't know.

With a title like that, how can they expect you to be polite?

Well, you have right on your side, Marion. This is from a cricket commentary. 'Well, now he's got two short legs and a silly point. It's hardly the time for no balls!' There IS something about the English.

OK, three legs, three minutes:


Three Legs

A dog with just three legs
is lacking for pee legs.

The leg that is missing
was vital for pissing.

Poor three-legged Rover!
He pissed, and fell over.

Gosh, yes! You brought us Chaucer, didn't you? The English have always beat us on raunchiness. Remember, it was the Puritans that came here!

THREE LEGS

I have three legs,
two large, one small.
The large ones are short
and the small one is tall.

I have three legs.
Do you find my type odd?
You shouldn't, you know.
I'm much like a tripod

except for one difference
I cannot conceal.
I may have three legs
but just one's made of steel.

Bob!

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...aughing001.gif

PS--

I just noticed your smiley and found where you got it, Marion. Pretty cool. And now I see your little guy is supposed to be laughing. Good! I was worried it was more like

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...shocked010.gif

or god forbid

http://www.freesmileys.org/emoticons...n-char-015.gif

but I know you are too sophisticated to confuse the persona for the poet.

John, you refer to the current competition by two different numbers, 110 and 111. I have had no success finding any mention of the competition on the Oldie website. Could you please post a link so I can see the rules and also know what number competition it its? Thanks!

PS--
You're not posting late at all. You are posting yet again: http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...ighlight=oldie

Old (bad) joke.

In a public bath:

Guy #1: Y'know, I had polio as a child.
Guy #2: Oh, is that why your third leg's so short?

The Competition number is 111 and the rules exactly as I have stated them - verbatim from the magazine itself to which I am a subscriber. I don't think there is any mention of the competiton on the website.

Double posting eh? It's the short term memory that goes, isn't it.

I have just written a poem that's far too filthy to post here. I'm shocked at me.

I might send it.

PS: I did. And then I realised that my postal address makes it much worse.
Long Street
Point Vernon
Queensland.

Thanks for being so considerate Janet. Your address is more than enough to make me blush...I bet the postman wears sunglasses when he delivers your mail.

How did you guess Chris?

Janet, I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours.

Bob,
Ay! That never occurred to me! :o blush blush

Sam,
Maybe you could take that bad joke and versify it into an equally bad poem.

I once had a dog who could herd, beg,
Retrieve, sit-up, read, cook a shirred egg,

But the party trick that
Fell decidedly flat,

Was polishing shoes with his third leg.

Frank

Funny, Frank, but you need two more stanzas.

There, Stanley, that ought to do it.

Doh! Thanks, Bob.

Since Sam did not take up my challenge to transform his bad joke into a bad poem, I felt compelled to do it myself. Somebody had to step up to the plate. (As you see, I've followed Frank's brilliant and innovative stanzaic-limerick form.)

Once a poor fellow named Mort
told his sweetheart (a critical sort)

that he'd had polio,

to which she said "Oh,
no wonder your third leg's so short!"

John

No cricket commentary can shock more than the classic:

"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willie."

But your example was cute.

Duncan

Willey, my dear chap, Willey. Can you forget the following entry in the scorebook:

Lillee caught Willey bowled Dilley

That might have been the match that Botham overbalanced playing an aggressive stroke, tried to hop over the stumps and failed, thus knocking them over and getting himself out. 'He should have got his leg over,' muttered the commentator Jonathan Agnew, causing the other commentator, the peerless Brian Johnson, to have a five minute giggling fit that is now a classic of cricket.

Wrong thread! Sorry!

Duncan

3 stanza limerick?
 

Do you all think the three stanza limerick form invented by Frank, and so brilliantly used by Frank and myself, would be acceptable to the Oldie? Pity not to be able to submit these gems.

I am a stool. I have three legs.
It's sadly true that I don't know more.
My legs are 1/4 of a dozen eggs.
I wish that I could count past four.

It's sadly true that I don't have more
Legs than a common milking stool.
My parents, those rural folk, were poor.
At times I feel like a proper fool.

No legs like a common milking stool?
How many legs should a stool possess?
At times I feel like a proper fool
But I stand on three legs and query, "Yes,

How many legs should a stool possess?"
I wish that I could count past four,
Though I feel at times like a proper fool.
It's sadly true. I don't know more.

Lillee caught Willey bowled Dilley

That might have been the match that Botham overbalanced playing an aggressive stroke, tried to hop over the stumps and failed, thus knocking them over and getting himself out. 'He should have got his leg over,' muttered the commentator Jonathan Agnew, causing the other commentator, the peerless Brian Johnson, to have a five minute giggling fit that is now a classic of cricket.



Now there's a perfect example of dense Brit humor, John! [I don't mean "dense Brit" but Brit dense humor, you know?] I mean it's easy enough to get the general drift, but a giggling fit at "getting a leg over"? Are you sure it wasn't getting a leg up? Or maybe it was "hop over the stumps" that brought it all on...? Yes, must have been "hop over the stumps"!

Ah, 'getting your leg over' is rude brit for... well I don't know what you Americans say. The point is that it's TOO rude for commentators to mention on nationwide family sports programme. Other rude brit for same thing 'getting your end away', 'getting your oats', 'dipping your wick'... What DO you Americans say?

And Botham was rather well known for these things.

Ah, 'getting your leg over' is rude brit for... well I don't know what you Americans say. The point is that it's TOO rude for commentators to mention on nationwide family sports programme. Other rude brit for same thing 'getting your end away', 'getting your oats', 'dipping your wick'... What DO you Americans say?

And Botham was rather well known for these things.


Struck out.
Went down swinging.
Was fanned.
Whiffed 'im.
Took a looker.
Etc.

Got some.
Nookied.
Scored.
Home run.
Made it.
Etc.

Thanks, Sam!

John, those are two different lists for two different meanings.