This is an old one of mine that I've dickied up a bit.

It came to me quite suddenly, as I lay in my bed –
that wholesome taste that one-time graced our slices of white bread.
Rich and sweet, ‘twas quite a treat but, like the Dublin tram,
it’s had its day, gone on its way – the pot of greengage jam.

Look on the shelf in shops yourself. There’s jams of every flavour -
kiwi, plum, chrysanthemum - to sample and to savour.
Blue ones, red ones, hard-to-spread ones, elderflower and yam.
Oh yes, there’s lots of jars and pots, but not of greengage jam.

How did they stop this luscious crop? Quickly, or in stages?
Did harvests fail through snow and hail? What happened to greengages?
Was there a coup in Katmandu? A putsch in Surinam?
Is civil war the reason for the lack of greengage jam?

Whate’er the cause, it’s time to pause and doff our caps with piety;
to bow the head and mourn the spread that’s lost unto society.
Technology means naught to me - you can’t eat texts or spam -
but how I miss the luscious kiss of rich, ripe greengage jam.

...Old but not mouldy! Delightfully fresh and zesty, Peter.

I second that emotion.
(If indeed I am remembering greengage correctly and not getting confused with gooseberry).

Greengages are plums, green ones. The jam is good.

...of Bovril and its jars
 

[I've sent in 3 variants on this theme. Bovril, although still sold of course, is no longer seen - by me, at least - in the magnificently styled sizeable jars of the past (before my time, admittedly.) And some well-known supermarkets (which shall remain unnamed by me here) don't seem to sell it at all! I rest my case, believeing these facts bring it within the purvieew of the brief.]

An old, 16-ounce, Bovril jar,
Dug up, may tell its story.
I cry “I salute what you are;
You hold the past: past glory!

So pristine, crystalline and true;
Imperial, not metric!
Embossed, not merely labelled! You
Bode nutriment electric –

That mythic power known as ‘vril’
Which Bulwer-Lytton, scribe,
Knew, prescient (as authors will)
Sustained his future tribe;

Plus strength of Roman ox!”
That jar, quiescent, void of label
Rests dignified now in a box
Upon a display table.

My pubic wig

What a precocious lad you were. I was well into adulthood before I discovered what a merkin was.


Just bring my old Seebakrascope.

But I remember seeing an advert for a Seebakrascope though I didn't buy one. Jaspistos presented that competition and my old friend, now gone, Paul Griffin, was a winner.

Merkin
 

A merkin was a pubic wig... but how was it attached?
And was it liable to come adrift if idly scratched?
Was it worn in flagrante for verisimilitude?
Or doffed some moments ante lest mussed-up by what ensued?

(I ponder the etymology of the word, and wonder if it is cognate with the German Chancellor.
Perhaps it is as well that their use is not -is it?- prevalent today, or we should doubtless see adverts where these articles parade as cute furry talking creatures: 'comparethemerkin.com'.)

More about the merkin
 

‘Tis said that prostitutes would wear a merkin
To hide those parts that syphilis might lurk in.

Today, some actors are required to work in
This garment, like a tiny, furry jerkin,
To stop the viewers going quite berserk in
The cinema, on glimpsing Brad Pitt’s gherkin.

I have to say, Marcus, that I have never seen a pubic wig. Do people go bald down there? I suppose double-sided sellotape is the thing. I never entered this for the previous outing. Indeed I originally wrote it for a Literary Review competition with another verse. It failed to find favour, but whether because of the pubic wig I do not know.

Did the Emperor Tiberius, who was sexually active when quite unbelievably old, wear a pubic wig? You would know, Marcus.

I smiled at Marcus's mention of the mighty Japistos, whose other skills have been celebrated elsewhere (Translation) but a few sleeps ago.

Here's an interestingly-titled film which may be relevant. Or not.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064123/

However, I feel it is incumbent on our generation to raise awareness of the merkin in these days of wanton depilation.

Jaspistos was a poet. It is unusual for such as he to be judging these competitions. Indeed it is unique I think. Here is his best poem - a honey. I wish I had written it.

Arizona Nature Myth by James Michie

Up in the heavenly saloon
Sheriff sun and rustler moon
gamble, stuck in the sheriff's mouth
The fag end of an afternoon.

There in the bad town of the sky
Sheriff, nervy, wonders why
He's let himself wander so far West
On his own; he looks with a smoky eye

At the ruslter opposite turning white,
Lays down a king for Law, sits tight
Bluffing. On it that crooked moon
Plays an ace and shoots for the light.

Spurs, badge, and uniform red,
(It looks like blood, but he's shamming dead),
Down drops the marshal, and under cover
Crawls out dogwise, ducking his head.

But Law that don't get its man ain't Law.
Next day, faster on the draw,
Sheriff creeping up from the other side,
Blazes his way in through the back door.

But moon's not there. He's hidden out on
A galloping phenomenon,
A wonder horse, quick as light.
Moon's left town. Moon's clean gone.

Yes, that's a beauty. Newcomers to his work could do worse than begin with "Dooley is a Traitor".

I found one of his in a magazine which is, I swear, somewhere in this cottage, wherein he defines the Almighty as "the gizmo that steers". Give me a few hours' rest from a desperate, paper-whirling search for a piece of Ausonius for my step-daughter and I'll see if I can find it, though it may be safe among his later poems, which are on order from Abe.

John, the competition editor and judge at the New Statesman, some decades ago, was James Fenton.

Who remembers Hilversum on the dial?
 

The broadcasts of Priestley JB in the war
Are treasured because they’re iconic
But did he,I wonder,say this heretofore
“I’d be nowt wi’out valves thermionic”

The silicon chip is a soulless device
It’s so lacking in glass curved and clear
But valves would warm up with a scent rather nice
And a hum (onomatopoeia)

Boy boffins like me they would truly astound
For aglow they’re too fragile to touch
And yet so robust that upon loss of sound
A good thump on the set restored Hutch

Those people at Orange do give me the pip
Ignoring terrific inventions
“With valves in our phones” clever admen could quip
“We give mobiles unheard of dimensions”

Indeed I originally wrote it for a Literary Review competition with another verse. It failed to find favour, but whether because of the pubic wig I do not know.

It would certainly have pleased the much lamented Bron. It was a sad day for us when he departed from the Grand Poetry Competition.

Did the Emperor Tiberius, who was sexually active when quite unbelievably old, wear a pubic wig? You would know, Marcus

I would? I don't think Suetonius mentions this in his Twelve Caesars but he does say that Tiberius played with"minnows" in his swimming pool, though presumably he was without a pubic wig then.

Welcome, John.

It's not very often that "onomatopoeia" appears --or should that be 'opoeias'? -- in a poem. :)

(I remember Hilversum on the dial.)

Jayne

Tony Harrison I think

Like Granny's radio stuck on Hilversum

The rhyme is 'bum'. It would be.

I didn't know that, Brian. I am waiting for the call, Lucy. I won't tell any of them and I'll call myself Flagrante Delicto.

Marcus. Thank you. What a lot we know here. PS. I know it's In Flagrante Delicto but you can't call yourself that.