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Euro 2012 Day 24 The Final

Peter Goulding

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Spain 4 Italy 0

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 A perfect night for football, free from rain,
they came to far-famed Kiev railway station
or flew there in their hordes by chartered plane,
thousands in a state of high elation,
to witness Italy and mighty Spain
battling to be top-dog football nation.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Spain began with fired imagination
and, from the start, the shots began to rain
in on Buffon’s goal. Strange vacillation
gripped the proud Azzurri -it was plain
an early Spanish goal was in gestation.
Fabregas to Silva – goal for Spain!

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Still Italy tried putting it to Spain,
tackling hard with grim determination
but the midfield nine were tugging at the rein.
All football skills were here in combination
and television replays showed quite plain
the Italians had no cause for protestation

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 when Alba scored. Though gripped by devastation,
still the Italians took the game to Spain,
though now it was a hopeless assignation.
But it was clear that they could not restrain
the rampant Spanish, high on sheer elation.
Down to ten through injury, it was plain

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 that it was now for pride that they were playin’.
But the Spanish swarmed again, an infestation
that swept like locusts ‘cross the wide terrain.
And so we watched with morbid fascination
as Torres, first, augmented Buffon’s pain
and Mata helped complete the mutilation.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 No-one could deny the correlation
between display and score. Some may complain
that Spain play sideways like a mad crustacean.
But not last night. The world saw Spain
carving forward with such domination
you might as well have tried to stop the rain.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 Extending their proud reign with great elation,
their rightful station taken, it was plain
that Spain remain the ultimate football nation.

© Peter Goulding 2nd July 2012

Notes

My first, and probably last, attempt at a rhyming sestina!

Editor Note: Brilliant Pete ! Amazing.

Sestinas:
sestinas are tricky and cause much frustration
they can also cause poets some pain
but well done Pete you have our admiration
as much as the football of Spain
and just like the game there is much excitation
when you read it again and again ……

in the words of the Beach Boys a good vibration
exudes and proceeds like a train
but for Italy all that is left is despair and night of pure frustration

( “One stanza of 6 lines and 3ee lines are hard enough…
let along 6 stanzas of 6 and 1 of 3!.” Crispin)

Sestina (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
A sestina (Occitan: sestina [sesˈtinɔ]; Catalan: sextina [sə(k)sˈtinə] or [se(k)sˈtina]; also known as sestine, sextine, sextain or sesta rima) is a structured 39–line poem consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three-line stanza, known either as an envoi or tornada. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas, rotated in a set pattern. The sestina is an example of a complex fixed verse form.

The structure of the sestina is able to produce several effects; it can be a sign of duress in itself, or serve to echo an existing emotion within the subject matter that it orders. The apparent conflict between the strict order of the line-ending words and the emotional complexity of the form has the potential to create an aesthetic tension. This repetition of patterns within a sestina has been given as one of its strengths, though this is also an aspect that has been criticised.

The invention of the form is usually attributed to Arnaut Daniel, a troubadour of 12th century Provence. It was cultivated by his followers, and by other poets on the continent during the following centuries, who developed the “standard form” of the sestina. The earliest example of the form in English appeared in 1579, but it was rarely used in Britain until the end of the 19th century. The sestina remains a popular poetic form, and many sestinas continue to be written by contemporary poets.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/euro-2012-day-24-the-final/