ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

The Bush Two-up School (or A Game of Swy)

Old Bluey Jones still had the Kip and nine times he’d tossed heads,
while Nugget Walker had the job of watching out for Feds.
The Ring Boss kept an eye out making sure no bets were late
and woe-be-tide the miscreant who didn’t play it straight.

The bets were placed once more and Bluey tossed the pennies high
and all their eyes were on them as they rose into the sky.
Then down they came and hit the ground and turned up heads again,
as Bluey did a war dance to the groans of losing men.

“I’ll let it ride” old Bluey cried and beamed a wicked smile
and dared the ring to cover him – “today I’ll make my pile.”
Again all bets were covered and the coins were tossed once more,
“It’s heads again” the Ring Boss called and fifty blokes there swore.

You’d better halve your kitty now old Bluey’s mates had cried,
just one more time the old bloke said for luck is on my side.
He placed the pennies on the kip with thousands in the pot,
then tossed the coins and down came tails and lost the flam’en lot.

******

© T.E. Piggott

Good one Terry -good to see you posting.

Sue

That's a ripper Terry - good on you and lovely to see you taking up the challenge . I had not heard the term Swy before so great to learn something new - I wonder if that is regional terminology? Anyone know?

You capture the typical Aussie gambler so effortlessly in this - how many of us are always willing to have just one more shot at it and end up losing the lot. Are we just eternal optimists perhaps? I can picture this so clearly it is like a bloody painting and so Australian. IMO this is a great poem Terry - thank you.

Cheers

Maureen

Goodonya Terry.

Maureen, according to the OED, swy comes from the German word zwei, meaning two. Dunno why we use a German word here but it sounds like a cross between sly and swindle a good word for gambling. .

Hellooo Neville,
Isn't much of our English language derived from German...?

(Good one Terry) xx

Glenny Palmer wrote:Hellooo Neville,
Isn't much of our English language derived from German...?

Acht...so. or as Peter Sellers used to say " gerblungen gashitzen "

Hi Maureen, Sue, Neville and Glenny

Maureen, I was glancing through the prompts and it reminded me I had always wanted to write about Two-up; might try to expand this a bit later on.

I guess two-up has been played almost everywhere, but the Kalgoorlie game is legendary and probably the most famous one of all. In the old days it was illegal and was held after the midday session on Sundays. A mob would gather at a particular pub and would be carefully watched by Neville’s mob, so they’d climb into numerous cars and then all tear off in different directions to fool the boys in blue. The place the game was to be played at had been spread by word of mouth and a different spot was used each time, this added to the excitement.
The games legal now and lost a lot of its attraction, you even get bloody tourist rocking up to it these days.

Terry