Monday 28 June 2010

The Poetry Bus - Signs and Blunders

This week's poetry bus is in the capable hands of Don't Feed the Pixies (and you really shouldn't) and he set us a task of rehabilitating road (or any other) signs that were just lounging about doing nothing. You could either:

1) Follow the sign and write something you saw at the other end
2) Merely imagine what might be at the other end and write about that
3) Find a new use for the word on the sign to explain something that currently has no word

To see others' valuable contributions go here.

My sign is this one, which I used to walk past every day on the way to work.  Read it carefully.  Good, eh?



WARNING
THIS FENCE IS
PAINTED WITH
ANTI-VANDAL
PROOF PAINT

This sign is not wrong,
If that’s what you’re thinking.
It’s just in the wrong place.

Somewhere, there is a world
Where anti-vandals go around
Causing thousands of pounds

Of improvements.

We need protecting
From such as these.


The sweet, sweet irony of this is that this sign is hanging on the fence of a school.  Not just any school, mind you - it's the one I attended as a youngling.  Which explains a lot.  Or not.

17 comments:

  1. Hi Argent what a great sign and location - irony indeed!
    The idea that there is a world were anti-vandals go around and inprove things is inspirted (infact I believe there are very small groups doing this kind of thing already). It's a great fun poem. I really enjoyed reading this :)

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  2. What a great sign, even the font of it is quirky, nice choice, and I like what you did with it too!

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  3. Sadly mistakes like this are on the increase - thankfully we have yourself to point them out!

    Great pome and wonderful sign

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  4. Haha, nice one Argo! Anti vandalsb are on the rampage as we speak, buying dado rails and decking in B&Q, the bastards!

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  5. Anti-vandals? Can I join this gang?! :)

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  6. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...
    x

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  7. Nice one (it took me a minute to notice - that's bad, isn't it?) And it's outside a school? Ouch!

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  8. @Gwei Mui - Thank you! I wish some anti-vandals would visit my garden!

    @Niamh - Cheers!

    @DFTP - I cracks me up that it really is on the fence of my old school. Typical!

    @TFE - Beware the dado rails, the magnolia paint and the decking, aargh, so much decking!

    @Jinksy - Join? Sure you can!

    @Rachel - I know.

    @Pure Fiction - It kind of creeps up on you like those word puzzle things where one of the the words is repeated, but your brain filters it out.

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  9. This is great! It took me a minute to figure it out too - sad because I think I'm quite brillian (heh).

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  10. Aside from the grammatical error (brilliant) how does vandal proof paint work? Does a big net coume out and snare graffiti artists? Or magnetically sticks them to the fence like flypaper?

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  11. Wonderful! I once taught in a school where the drain pipes were treated with anti-vandal proof paint to stop the vandals getting on to the flat roof. I tried... but all to no avail.

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  12. What a great sign! I'm still chuckling at others we could write: "Trespassing Encouraged," "Please Smoke," "Bring Your Gun and Kill Some Animals."

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  13. I am poetry bus-page-hopping...
    (I am so un-computer-savvy I cannot figure out links/ backlinks) I wrote a "sign" Post...
    Thanks for yours!

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  14. ha, ha, ha! Loved the sign, loved the poem!

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  15. Bug - You ARE brilliant, it's just people that wrote the sign that aren't!

    Peter - I have long wondered what anti-vandal proof paint does, but have yet to catch it in action.

    Dave - You, as a teacher, tried to climb onto the school roof? Cooool!

    Karen - I think you're onto something! "Please drop litter" could be an addition.

    Izzy - I'll be right over. I wrote a post on how to do links here.

    Domestic Oub - Welcome back! We missed you!

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  16. And it works! I tried writing on that fence, and as you can see, there's nothing! ; ) Great read, A!

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  17. @Jeanne I - Hehe, the paint works even if the education didn't.

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