86. Belated Greetings

BELATED GREETINGS!

I missed the Horses' Birthday!
Oh what an oversight!
On the First of August every year
There are candles we should light!
For every horse gets older
By precisely one whole year
On the self-same date in August.
Now don't you think that's queer?
If it lives below the Equator,
On that very special date
It must celebrate its birthday,
Sometimes early, sometimes late.
When I was teaching children
We made a mighty fuss.
We'd celebrate those birthdays
As though they affected us!
'Today's the Horses' Birthday!'
The little ones would cry.
And we'd paint delightful pictures
And we'd hang them out to dry.
We'd read stories about horses,
We'd go galloping outside,
And I might make up a poem
About going for a ride.
But now I'm out to pasture
Like a poor old nag myself,
And the books about the horses
Are all dusty on the shelf.
All the poems have been written,
All the stories have been told.

I forgot the Horses' Birthday!
I must be growing old!

85. Arrested Development.

Here is another selection from my book of short melodramas called 'Mix Me a Melodrama'. The play is called RECIPE FOR REVENGE'.

Archie is a policeman and something of a buffoon. He is called to a murder scene, but he immediately falls in love with a suspect, and he sings her the following song.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

Archie speaking.......

(Spoken)
I've fallen in love with this glorious creature!
So glamorous in every feature!
That figure! It goes in and out!
That face! That little rosebud pout!
How can I keep my mind on crime
When Milly Melsetter is so sublime?
Milly! Milly! Milly! Cripes!
I've not felt like this since I got my stripes!


To the tune of 'And the Band Played On.'

My heart went bump!/ I can still hear it thump,/ And I seem to sway./ She looks so smart/ It's affecting my heart/ In the nicest way./ If she should discover/ I'd suit as a lover/ I'd gladly give her all my pay!/ This crime doesn't matter!/ The whole world could shatter!/ I'd shout 'Hooray!'./


I'm in the Service,/ But still I get nervous/ When she appears!/ She's captivating!/ I'm constantly stating/ My doubts and fears./ I know I'm a tough guy/ A bit of a rough guy/ And she is the queen of her peers!/ But I'd be elated/ If we could be mated!/ I'd shout 'Three cheers!'/

I am bowled over!/ I once was a rover,/ Now this occurs!/ I feel so tender/ That I'd like to send her/ Some jewels and furs!/ It may sound excessive,/ But I feel possessive;/ A tom-cat who's nothing but purrs!/ My whole body's dancing!/ I feel like romancing!/ I'll shout'I'm hers!'/

84. Froggy Pond

IMPORTED POEM (I'd never be so politically incorrect!)

Through Blogging I have met-up with an old friend, Rob. We lived in the village of Alton together sixty years ago. When I say 'lived together' that was far from the case! He was a Catholic, I was the daughter of the Headmaster of the local Church of England School! Any hobnobbing was frowned upon .Remember those days? Not that hobnobbing was ever on the cards; I don't think either of us had much sex-appeal at that stage! In any case, it was his sister, Dorothy, who was the link.

Rob mistakenly thought I wanted contributions to my Rinkly Rimes and he sent me this offering. I think it's so witty that I'm including it. The anti-French sentiments are entirely the work of the author! (He's probably referring to garlic!) I gather he was on holiday in France at the time.

A harking back to the Good (?) Old Days can be seen on my Clickpicks Blog!


FROGGY POND.

This is the tale of Grandad Rob,

Performer of each menial job,

Who paid a brief hygienic visit,

And suffered embarrassment exquisite

One sunny morning, plans were laid

By she-who-always-is-obeyed,

A little task for him to do:

" Please throw away the barbecue"

So off he went, with style and grace,

The properly appointed place

-A plastic skip beside the road,

Receptacle of noxious load.

The flapping door he opened wide,

A dreadful smell flowed from inside,

Effluvia coming straight from hell:

The quintessential gallic smell.

With hastily averted gaze,

And muttered francophobic phrase,

He threw the barbie in, and then

Approached his motorcar again.

But now catastrophe ensued:

A little thing, but very rude.

This news your living blood will freeze

-He'd thrown away his bunch of keys.

And six feet down the keys you'd see,

(Or metres one-point-eighty-three)

They nestled there - o cursed luck

-Upon a bed of froggy muck.

At first he reached in with his arm,

Like fishing in a sewage farm.

A leg then tried he - no more luck

In fact, he almost got it stuck.

The problem stayed, but only more so,

Inserted he his upper torso,

And there he hung, with legs a-kimbo

Within his own putrescent limbo.

He tried to sort this impasse out,

While all his loved ones fell about.

So, added to the smell mephitic,

He'd now a fam'ly paralytic.

Veronica then, all clever-cloggish

-Well versed is she in matters boggish

She solved her father's smelancholy!

She used the good old British brolly

Extended by a hook of wire
She saved the keys from durance dire

But now, it seems, his hopes grow dim
Nobody wants to talk to him.

The reason is, with all this stench
They clearly think he must be French.

83. Lazy by the Lake.

When we arrived in Australia in the early 1970s I was enchanted by Lake Macquarie. We had left South Africa, with its glorious mountains, and I never expected to enjoy such beauty again. But Australia and its lakes proved a wonderful surprise. This continent is often described as 'harsh' and most people think 'beaches' when they think of it, but we also enjoy lakes, rivers, gorges, rain-forests and much more.Our lake is named after one of the first Governors of New South Wales, a gentleman named Lachlan Macquarie. Lachlan is still a popular name for boys in Australia. This poem started life as a song; hence the refrain.

On my Clickpicks blog you will discover the reason for my enthusiasm.

LAZY BY THE LAKE.

The Lake lies limpid on a lazy afternoon.

If we don't get there soon

We'll be sorry.

With trees surrounding

And boats abounding,

It's quite astounding!

It's our Lake MacQuarie.

We can stop a while beneath a sunny summer sky

And watch the seabirds fly

With easy grace.

It's all so gentle

And elemental

I'm sentimental

About the place.

*

The paths wind pleasantly beneath the shady trees

And we can take our ease

Simply strolling.

Where Dads and Mothers

And baby Brothers

And all the others

Need no cajoling.

If we spy a seat we can simmer in the sun

There's nothing to be done,

But have a ball.

It's all so gentle

And elemental

I'm sentimental

About it all.

*

The evening comes. The sun's a ball of rosy flame

And aren't we glad we came

From the city!

The light is fading

And birds are wading

And their parading

Looks oh so pretty.

Our skin is salty from the softly-blowing air

And still we stand and stare, goodness sake!

It's all so gentle

And elemental

I'm sentimental

About the Lake.

*

Gigi

GIGI!
Do you remember Gigi?
Do you recall her colt-like enthusiasm,
Her awkward grace,
Her charming innocence?

Do you remember Tomboys?
Those girls, in 'our day',
Who were described as 'betwixt and between",
'All arms and legs',
'Little ugly ducklings'?
Do you recall their gangliness,
Their bony knees covered in bruises,
Their hair bobbed into a 'pudding-basin' shape?

Gigi blossomed.
That was what it was called in those days.
"Your Greta has certainly blossomed'
One mother would say to another.
And everyone knew what was meant.

In the fulness of time Gigi became a woman.
In the fulness of time our Tomboy became the toast of the town.

In the fulness of time……..

But now time has no fulness to arrive at.
That time between childhood and womanhood
Has been filled-in
In a sort of paint-by-numbers,
One-size-fits-all
Sort of way.

Our Tomboy sports painted toe-nails,
Gauzy 'bling',
Frothy tutus
And all the accessories required by today's
(heaven help us!)
'Tween'

Perky little bras adorn
Very non-perky little chests.

These young girls will blossom, too,
No doubt about it.
Eventually Nature will catch-up with fantasy.
But at what price?

There will be no hesitant little ballerina
Emerging from the wings,
Pristine, shiny, new.
There will be no universal gasp
At the transformation.

'Been there, done that.'

The eyes will be less wide,
The skin will be less dewy,
The breathlessness will be less thrilling.

And the tutu will be grubby and crumpled.

Come back, Gigi!
*

81. Agin' the Government!

I am not a political animal, but my friend Patricia White sent me an email this-morning which highlighted the work of Amnesty International and and all that the organisation is doing for Human Rights. The Olympic Games are upon us and, if nothing else, we should thank our lucky stars that we 'are not as other men are'.

See my Clickpicks page for the Amnesty International Logo

AGIN' THE GOVERNMENT!

We're all 'agin the government' it seems.
We mock our rulers' attitudes and schemes.
In every pub and bar,
Where groups of people are
We hear the variations on the themes.

'That so-and-so! He hasn't got a clue!

'Give me a chance! I'll tell him what to do!'

'They're a pack of thieving guttersnipes, that lot'

'Because of them this country's gone to pot!'

'He hasn't got a brain inside his head'.

'Did you hear what that lying bastard said!'

And so it goes, the hot air ever rising
And nothing changes! That is not surprising!
We can get things off our chests
Call them charlatans and pests
But there's no-one calls our language 'terrorising'

Be thankful for this fact ..... we're free to speak,
To give our rulers lots of 'bloomin' cheek'!
In a land not far away
Men must watch the words they say,
So they go about their business looking meek.

Not everybody lives the same as we,
And we take for granted that our lives are free.
So be forthright and be frank
But do not forget to thank
The men of old who forged
DEMOCRACY

80. What a Raquet!

With the Olympic Games looming I've been pondering the changes in society in the last 100 years! One of my Indian fellow-Bloggers complained that the ladies of his tennis-club were being criticised for wearing too little on the court. Someone wondered aloud if they would be better in saris! (Not sure how to spell that!) This reminded me of the fact that it wasn't so very long ago that European ladies had to keep to a strict dress code! Times have changed.

Recall the tennis gear of old on my Clickpicks Blog.

WHAT A RAQUET!

On the tennis court,
If skirts were short,
The moral-police would say
'Please stop the game!
It is a shame
For ladies to dress that way!'
Though lengthy skirts
And long-sleeved shirts
Impeded the flight of the ball,
Girls had to dress
Well, more or less,
Like ladies coming-to-call!
The men could stride
And leap and glide
With freedom, as they played,
But the ladies' wrath,
In those yards of cloth,
Made everyone dismayed.
Now freedom reigns!
They broke their chains!
And that's how it should be.
On the tenns court
And in every sport
A female should be free!