[John Whitworth]

The Strad competition was won by Bill Greenwell with a really superb effort. Post it here, Bill, so that we can all gape. You can also tell us, in the fullness of time, all about the Harrogate tea and cake set.

Competition No.121
It's time for the annual bout-rimes. Please write a poem of 14 lines using these rhymes in this order.: undepressed, rain, strain, nest, blest, chain, brain, rest, blast, wilt, day, built, past, lay.

Entries to Competition No 121 by 12th February. email comps@theoldie.co.uk

There was some trouble with this email but it's OK now. Isn't it? Oh, and can anyone identify the sonnet that has this set of rhymes?

[Martin Elster]

A later draft of my Bouts-Rimés poem is in post #22.

[Susan McLean]

Martin, this shows some promise, but could be tightened. "Happenings" is vague ("oversights" perhaps?), and all the anapests at the end make the lines sound flabby to me. I would suggest something like this:

Watching majestic eagles soaring past,
we miss the stress cracks in the eggs they lay.

You have lots of time to polish it, so make every word count.

Susan

[Martin Elster]

Thanks, Susan! If you think this poem shows promise, then I will certainly try to tighten it. I might even post it for critique on TDE. I didn't notice the deadline date, but now I see that I do have time to polish this. Who knows, I might even try another!

PS - I posted a revision in post #5 (below), which changes in the lines you pointed out.

[Martin Elster]

A later draft of my Bouts-Rimés poem is in post #22.

[John Whitworth]

I must say I think that is very good, the more so since I have a sonnet of my own, strong (if I may say so) in phraseology, but the teeniest bit weak in argument. Revisions gratefully accepted. As Martin says, there's plenty of time.

Bout Rimes

Unfazed and resolutely undepressed,
I leave the smoking ruins to the rain.
I can’t deny it’s something of a strain.
What’s rubble now was once our little nest.
We anchored in the Islands of the Blest
Before Misfortune forged his heavy chain.
It batters like a hammer in my brain
And grants me neither remedy nor rest.

I feel it in my bones, the bitter blast,
The wailing winds of withering and wilt,
The encroaching night that cancels out the day,
The chaos that unbuilds what once was built,
The serpent present swallowing up the past,
The guttering grave where once our future lay.

[Spindleshanks]

Oh, I do like playing around with bouts-rimes. I like what's gone before from Martin and John, too, and will come back with further comment on them.
I don't know the original source of the rhymes, but you could try Lord Alfred Douglas.

Here's my take:


Empty Nest

She keeps his pj’s, socks and undies pressed;
she waters her begonias in the rain;
she mops and vacuums daily to the strain
of Willie’s Always On My Mind. The nest
is empty but in ready state. She’s blest
with inchoate dementia, and the chain
of memory is frail. Her failing brain
is single consolation. She’s at rest.

My memory’s a living thing: the blast
of winter wind, the overwhelming wilt
of spirit as I knelt among the day
lilies spread like pretty houses built
of straw. I tombed our future with his past,
and trudged the endless mile from where he lay.

oOOo

[John Whitworth]

Very nice, spindleshanks, but you have to use that dreadful word 'undepressed' in line 1. Could Lord A have said undepressed? It originlly struck me that a bomb's setter-offer (whatever is the word?) could be said to be 'undepressed' in the terrorist's pocket.

[Spindleshanks]

Thanks John. I knew that, but can never resist the opportunity for a pun, even a dreadful one. I do have an alternative 1st line in my pocket, ready to release.

Peter

[Bill Greenwell]

[quote=John Whitworth;139042]The Strad competition was won by Bill Greenwell Post it here, Bill, so that we can all gape.

Here you are:

It'sd about David Garrett who tripped and smashed his Strad (altho it transpires it was a Guadagnini, but they let me off...

His case (far better ironclad)
Contained three hundred years of Strad,
But Garrett, skipping just a tad
Like some eccentric oread
Or else a sozzled undergrad
Following some foolish fad,
Tripped up - as if a gwyniad
Or possibly some salty scad
Lay on the stairs: the silly lad,
Destroyed his love, and on the gad,
Like Helen in The Iliad,
And smashed it up like Stalingrad.
And, helplessly, like Paula Rad-
cliffe in the Greek Olympiad,
Was sad and mad. It was too bad.
There’s really nothing else to add.