Come fry with me

In Competition No. 2954 you were invited to supply an ode to a greasy spoon, a challenge prompted by a recent column that Melissa Kite wrote bemoaning the rise of independent cafés and the consequent demise of the decent, non-locally foraged fry-up.
Most of your odes were to a caff, but a few chose to address a greasy piece of cutlery instead. I liked Josh Ekroy’s spin on Keats’s ‘Ode on Melancholy’ and there was nice work, too, from Nick Campailla and John Priestland. The winners take £25; Brian Murdoch pockets £30.

Thou spreadst a breakfast in my sight,
Thy filling grease bestoweth,
O transport caff, such pure delight,
My tea mug overfloweth!

Embryos of a farmyard fowll
Fried in the oil, and shining,
With strips of swine-flesh cheek-by-jowl,
Well crisped, by them reclining,
 
Fat tubes of offal, fungi too,
And bread of heaven grillèd.
Pulses in sauce of ruby hue,
Plates with black pudding fillèd.
 
It breaketh fasts and maketh whole,
Full English faileth never.
O grant me thy cholesterol
Upon my plate for ever!
Brian Murdoch
 
Small wonder that in verse I show respect
To you sweet spoon whose wretched shame I
share,
Washed up in filthy water through neglect
By slipshod students famed for lack of care.
Yet, when you’re dipped in soup, your smeary
touch
Against my slimy bottom thrills me so,
I long for friendly fingers that could clutch
Your slippery form and never let you go.
Dear spoon, though squeaky clean we’ll never be
For lack of Fairy Liquid in our lives,
I feel convinced that you were made for me
In just the way that forks were made for knives.
When cows jump moons and cats on fiddles play
And little canines laugh to see such fun
Perchance with me, your dish, you’ll run away
And we in greasy bliss shall be as one.
Alan Millard
 
When, plagued by commonsense and rational
thought,
I contemplate the weight of rancid grease
I have consumed in years of breakfasts bought
In Tattooed Brenda’s Caff I never cease
To sense the kiss of death in every plate
Of saturated-fat-fried egg and chips
And all those bits, well past their sell-by date,
Of sausage made from sphincters, ears and lips.