LONG AGO IN THE OLD WILD WEST

 

Long ago in the

        Old Wild West

With empty pockets

         In his vest

Into the frontier

        Town of Conroy

Rode a ragged

        Looking cowboy

He tied up by

       The towns hotel

And found a man

       A tale to tell

He said that he

       Had bad luck

And all he needed

       Was a buck

The man took him

       To the saloon

Saying if you drink       

          From the spittoon

Ill give you fifty

       Take time to think

Fifty dollars

       If you take a drink

The cowboy nodded

        And then said yes

He was willing

       Well more or less

He held the spittoon

       Up to his lip

He took a breath

       And then a sip

He drank his fill

       Till all was gone

The man paid up

       And said well done

You really earned

       This money well

 But I must say this

       If truth to tell

I would have paid you

       Just to try

You did not need

       To drink it dry

Why didn’t you stop?

       Are you a chump?

I couldn’t stop

       It was in one lump

PIANO FOR SALE

 

I have a tale of woe to tell

Of my piano which I must sell

Oh, what a tragic sort of tale

Which tells of my piano for sale

For it has to go so I was told

Though I don’t really want it sold

 

So, a new owner I must find 

Someone appreciative and kind

Or to the garage go it must

To become a gatherer of dust

But I can’t keep it out of sight     

So, I’ll bid farewell to my upright

 

Why must I part with my dear friend?

But part we must though in the end

Creating extra space is sort

But what makes space of such import?

What makes this move so necessary?

Is the room changed to a nursery

 

The time has come to do the deed

To write the add for them to read

So how to frame the perfect add

To attract the good but not the bad

Piano for sale, is how I began

Piano for sale, only used for Chopin

BLOODY TECHNOLOGY

            Computers are here to ease your life

Preventing tiresome trouble and strife

Well, that’s the story salesmen tell

About PC’s and laptops as well

 

Computers which we depend upon

That work with chips of silicon

With glowing screens and flashing lights

With touchscreens and terabytes

 

Machines to complete any task

Varied functions whatever you ask

They’ll calculate and interface

Then trash your files without a trace

 

You put your faith in state of the art

Then when you’re not looking it falls apart

So, to hell with programs and all that fuss

          Give me a pen and a pad and an abacus

TOM BAWCOCK'S EVE

 Legendary Mousehole resident Tom Bawcock

Went out to fish beneath a storm filled sky

To lift a famine from the village, and to honour him

They hold an annual festival and eat Stargazy pie

GAMBLING WAS NOT CONDONED

Gambling was not condoned

And using the Force wasn’t done

However, the Jedi Knights

Had a bet regardless and Obi Wan

CHEWIDDEN THURSDAY

 

On White Thursday

It’s St Chewidden’s Day

He’s revered by “Tinners”

Since their heyday

For sharing the secrets

Of Smelting they say

 

(On the last clear Thursday before (i.e. at least one week before) Christmas)

Uncanny Christmas Tales – (016) Christmas Wrap

 

When I was a kid and it came time for the “oldies” to open their presents I was always amazed by the fuss they would make about the wrapping paper.

They would first admire it then they would caress it tenderly and then they would gingerly begin to unwrap the gift, and once unwrapped they would inexplicably set aside the present while they carefully folded the wrapping paper so it could be used again the following year, and then and only then would they turn their full attention on the gift, and then this ritual would be repeated with each subsequent present and would be performed by all of the oldies.

As a child I was confused and quite frankly didn’t understand why they didn’t tear the paper to shreds like the rest of us.

Looking back, I can only assume that this was as a result of having been through the hard times, the depression of the thirties, the shortages of the war years and the austerity of the fifties.

My mum would go through the whole ritual and would carefully tuck her pile of wrapping paper, bows and ribbons, away in the sideboard draw “Ready for next year”.

Come the next year and the fabulous treasures which had been so thoughtfully secreted away were nowhere to be seen, only new rolls of wrapping paper, packs of bows and reels of ribbons.

So, I think to myself sanity has been restored this year it will be about the presents not what they were wrapped in.

But no, on Christmas day it’s the same ritual all over again.