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Unread 12-14-2011, 01:26 PM
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Jayne Osborn Jayne Osborn is offline
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Default *FANFARE!* The Oldie Comp 144 'End of the World' Bazza and Frank win

Another FANFARE announcement - I like making these!
Bazza and Frank win prizes and congratulations also go to Susan de Sola for an HM. Well done, all three of you.

(The next comp is on a new thread)
Jayne



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxThe Oldie Competition
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxby Tessa Castro

In Competition No 144 you were invited to write a poem entitled ‘The End of the World’. ‘No Kate’s royal baby, / No Queen’s Jubilee / No British Olympians, / No Strictly Come D. / The world is now ending, / It might be quite sad, / But surely it can’t be / All totally bad,’ thought Paul Davies. Others adopted a skeptical view, reasoning that Damn tomorrow is much like jam tomorrow. ‘I think the world will end with me, / I cannot see much farther. / So what’s the point of worrying / Oneself into a lather?’ asked Susan de Sola. Jennifer Hunt sent some serious lyrical lines concentrating on the Arctic skua, with ‘the last thing seen / not a boat but a floating feather…’ Congratulations to those printed below, who win £25, with the Yorkshire Tea gift set going to Paul Griffin.

When we leave a world that is coloured and bright and gay
We go, I think, where nothing is clear or kind,
And breathe in air with the flavour of musty bread;
No torture or fire, just boredom, eating away
At what remains of the half-remembering mind
Which broke up fears, but now is broken instead.

I glimpse that end at night in the dark of my room,
When terrible fears invade my restless head.
I see the worst of myself, any good on my way
Is blotted from sight, and fades in the general gloom.
‘Am I mad?’ I wonder, that still I hope for the dead
To know once more the blaze and the colour of day.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxPaul Griffin


I woke up Sunday morning with a stomach full of doom.
Old Nick himself, the Evil One, was standing in my room
With a grin as big as Glasto and a chili-burger smell,
Saying, ‘Congratulations, you have won a one-way trip to Hell.’
I said, ‘Look here, Satan baby, I’m just not prepared to die.’
He said, ‘Nobody’s asking you, so kiss your arse goodbye.
Besides, this is no one-off job, no individual hit.
You’ve read the Revelation of St John? Well, this is it.’
Then he snapped his scaly fingers and lit up my TV screen
With a Coca-Cola sponsored apocalyptic scene,
A Bosch-like p[anorama of the torment of the damned
In a dark yet fiery pit where the sinners all were crammed.
It was payback time for evil, for those who wouldn’t learn,
Or as Milton wrote (well, sort of) it was burn, baby, burn.
And I knew that I belonged with that scorched and howling host
As the Day of Judgement dawned and the cosmos turned to toast.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxBasil Ransome-Davies


The man who had foretold collective fates
For decades in the square, for all to hear,
At some point wearied of predicting dates;
His sign now read, ‘The World Will End – Next Year.’
Which made some sense, at least, since he’d retired
A score of placards and revised his rants
As one by one, each doomsday had expired.
The local children heckled all his chants,
But Gran had made me swear I never would.
I’d sworn, but then I’d wanted to know why;
She’d reasons, she had said, and they were good.
I pressed her one day, as we passed him by;
The man was raving, loony, always wrong,
He was a public nuisance and a dunce.
‘Perhaps,’ she’d said, and hustled me along,
‘But then, he only has to get it right the once.’
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxFrank Osen


It’s the first blinding flash when the cord’s cut,
Then the day Teddy’s lost from your pram.
It’s the first day at school as the gate’s shut
And you hear mother’s car-door’s loud slam.

It’s the day when the family dog dies,
It’s the night when you missed the last bus;
It’s the morning your favourite snog lies
And you daren’t make an atom of fuss.

It’s the day of confirmed diagnosis,
And the day that you’re caught on the hop.
It’s the day of redundancy/ process
And yours is the job for the chop.

It’s the day all your pin-numbers frizzle,
You forget every note Elvis sang,
And it ends in your thoughts’ final fizzle
With the whimper that isn’t a bang.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxD A Prince
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Unread 12-14-2011, 01:52 PM
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John Whitworth John Whitworth is offline
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Bazza's fine poem looks much better here than it does all squidged up in The Oldie.
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Unread 12-14-2011, 04:09 PM
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Susan d.S. Susan d.S. is offline
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John, your "farther" suggestion is in the line they quoted. Pleased with the mention.
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Unread 12-14-2011, 04:12 PM
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Janice D. Soderling Janice D. Soderling is offline
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Big cheers for Basil, Frank and Susan!!
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Unread 12-14-2011, 10:06 PM
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Congrats to Bazza and Susan!
__________________
-- Frank

Last edited by FOsen; 12-14-2011 at 10:14 PM.
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