[Peter Goulding]

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.

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Peter Goulding

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

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

Originally Posted by Peter Goulding

...
but how I miss the luscious kiss of rich, ripe greengage jam.

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

[John Whitworth]

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

[Graham King]

[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.

[Marcus Sevat]

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.

[Graham King]

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'.)

[Brian Allgar]

‘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.

[John Whitworth]

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.

[Ann Drysdale]

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.

[John Whitworth]

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.