[John Whitworth]

I have posted this separately because I feel it may have been overlooked.

COMPETITION NO 138
Suddenly it seems as if the supermarkets own most of the 'convenience' shops too. Please write a poem called 'The Corner Shop'. about either the ways things are now or the way they used to be. Maximum 16 lines.

Entries to 'Competition 138' by post
(The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London WiT 3EG),fax (020 7436 8804) or email
(comps@theoldie.co.uk) by 3 June. Don’t forget your postal address.
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[John Whitworth]

The Corner Shop

Come, let us praise our corner shops,
For British corner shops are tops,
And who is it that keeps them so?
The chap who sweats like billy-ho,
A chap who’s not afraid of work,
A Pakistani or a Turk,
An immigrant, at any rate.
From sparrow-fart to very late
He toils as busy as a bee
With all his numerous family,
Every day in every week,
To bring us anything we seek,
And, cheerfully eschewing fuss,
He buys, marks up, and sells, and thus
Turns all the profit that he can,
This wholly estimable man.

[FOsen]

Good one, John - but it strikes me this topic is what I'm going to christen a "Nether Wallop Oak Dibblet" - so English, we furners won't stand a chance.

Frank

[Lance Levens]

The Old Corner Shop

(The Hitchcock Version)

How I recall the old corner shop
where Mr. Repressed could murder a chop
and Mrs. Gossip fondled your greens
then sneered at your disheveled teens.
And let's not omit Mr. Know-It-All,
who told you weekly the market would fall,
and Mrs.Toute Suite--she'd been to France--
or so she reiterated in rants.
Her comrade, Mrs. Stella de Chic,
wore a different perfume for every week.
She made your kiddies point and giggle,
but her skin-tight dress and wanton wiggle,
not to mention her roving eye
that caressed every man with a mind to buy,
caused the poor butcher's gaze to linger
and someone to grin as he chopped off his finger.

[Orwn Acra]

A bit wobbly in the middle, but a great poem, Lance.

[Roger Slater]

The Corner Shop

There used to be a corner shop
where every day I'd go
to buy my paper. and I'd stop
to chat with folks I know.

But now the corner shop is gone
and I don't need to get
the paper since I'm always on
the office internet.

And I don't need the corner shop
to chat with friends of mine.
We hang out pretty much non-stop
whenever we're online.

[Martin Parker]

Our late 1940s corner shop is now run by Mr and Mrs Patel. So, as a quick first draft --

Bargains piled upon the counter --
broken biscuits in a bin,
cans of soup with missing labels,
names hand-written on each tin;
sugar mice, their noses missing,
thick wool socks for outsize feet,
curry powder (much too daring!),
no-one used it down our street.
Smell of coffee and carbolic,
soapflakes, sugar, cheese and tea
mingling with the pink-scrubbed scent
of Brylcreemed errand boys like me.

Long-gone faces haunt the shop now
where, behind the soulless hurry
of its shrink-wrapped, smell-free neatness,
hangs a homely waft -- of curry.

[David Anthony]

What a lovely, moving poem, Martin.
It will play on a broader platform than The Oldie, I think.
Best regards,
David

[Lance Levens]

Yours is too good for the Oldie, Martin, as David points out.

[Martin Parker]

David and Lance, That is very generous of you both -- and much appreciated. I suspect it needs tweaking to pin down its period more exactly and earlier . So I might introduce an "off-the-ration" bargain.