[Jayne Osborn]

Congratulations to Jerome and Brian, and an Hon Mensh for Rob and one for me, too.

Next time it's bouts-rimés. (See new thread)

Jayne

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro


In Competition no 192 you were invited to write a poem called ‘The Wrong Kind of Apple’. No one mentioned apples for the teacher, but many wrote about Adam and Eve. Quite a few took pleasure in William Tell shooting badly.
Jayne Osborn relished the murder of her narrator’s latex (late, ex-) mother-in-law. Rob Stuart imagined Newton frustrated by an apple that flew sideways. Commiserations to these and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the juicy, ripe bonus prize of a Chambers Biographical Dictionary going to Jerome Betts in the shade of Housman’s boughs.

To east and west, to north and south,
Are apples, all the kinds that grow,
And some are crabs and sear the mouth
As countless chaps have cause to know.

The oak tree’s maggot-haunted galls,
Love-apples, too, in fiery rind,
Speak of the friend who fights and falls
With crimson coat and cankered mind.

Earth-apples ripen well down holes
Safe from the bilious light of day.
Same token, there are tender souls
Do best concealed by turf and clay.

So bear – chin up, shake not your fist –
Such luck as likelier fellows had,
Nor ever curse that cord they twist
About your Adam’s apple, lad.
Jerome Betts

He had an apple for his lunch, a Cox’s Orange Pippin.
He ate the core, the pips and all, but then it gave him gyp in
His stomach. It went on for days; he thought he’d better nip in
To see the doctor. 'Hmm', said he, perplexed, 'I’ll have to slip in

A probe to see what’s going on.' He checked the large intestine:
An apple tree was growing there that birds had built their nest in.
He fixed a chainsaw to the probe and somehow got it pressed in,
But nothing could dislodge the tree that pigeons now had messed in.

The branches sprouted through the skin, and buds began to grow.
The tree grew tall, the patient died. He’s been embalmed, and so
His family now waits for spring, and blossom white as snow –
They’re hoping that the corpse will win the Chelsea Flower Show.
Brian Allgar

Is this the usual kind, young Adam said
As he took the fruit from Eve and studied it.
Smooth and round, with skin of shiny red
It looked delicious, but when Adam bit
Into its skin, a shiver down his spine
Told him that it wasn’t quite the same.
Eve too had tried it, said it was divine
But didn’t tell how someone called her name
And led her from the usual path to be
Enticed towards the tree that God forbade,
But something in her head was saying she
Must be ashamed of choices she had made.
Wrong apple – so it was the world began
to suffer from the choices made by man.
Katie Mallett

In the summer of our voyage
When our muscles shone with health
We searched everywhere for apples
That would furnish us with wealth,
Golden apples in a garden
That would dazzle and astound,
But no matter where we travelled
They were nowhere to be found.

All the fruits that we discovered
Disappointed youthful eyes;
We found apples in their thousands
But we never won our prize.
Now we reminisce in winter
And it’s clear that we were blind,
For the apples we thought worthless
Were indeed the golden kind.
Frank McDonald