Football Poets

Oh Brazil, word perfect.

Oh Brazil how besotted we were
With your footballing miracles
And marvels
A supernatural phenomenon
Touched by genius since birth
Cradling with superlatives
Wrapped in the warm blanket
Of football’s comforting heat
Yesterday the yellow shirts
Dabbed the watercolours
On yet more landscapes of beauty
Brazil replicating 1970 Mexico World Cup
Flowing and rippling like the Amazon
But certainly not the retail type
Illustrating, sculpting, playing
With the ball like the children
From the favelas
Still pouring their hearts out
From the Copacabana and the Maracana
Trapping on knees as if from memory
Balancing the ball on shoulders with
Truth and utter sincerity
An inheritance from the past
When Pele, Garrincha, Didi and Vava were
Crowned as World Champions
From the era of British skiffle,
Rock and roll, Eddie Cochran
Footballing from the blessed heavens
Kissed by shimmering shades
Of bohemian ball control
Breathtakingly skilful
From the moment they
Departed their formative pram
Against Serbia, Casemiro, the
The ageless Thiago Silva,
Defying time itself
Calmness and serenity personified
Reading the game with
The studious eye rather like
The student at university who
Always knows the way
Then Neymar, surely one of the
Greatest of them all
Not quite up to the required
Standard since we always
Expect the Brazilians to
Step up to the plate
Masters of the world game
Word perfect undoubtedly so
Every sentence and paragraph
Fashioned from delicate
South American cloth
And yet Neymar has yet
To stamp his imprimatur
On this World Cup
Football of wonderfully vivid descriptions
Lyricism in every pass, short, neat,
Shining cameos, shimmies, drops of
Shoulders, humorous stepovers,
Dashing dinks, chips,
Wonderful practitioners of the simple
The effortless, timing as always
Beyond reproach
An almost Platonic understanding
Of when to play the right ball
Darting here, there and everywhere
Telepathic games of rapport
Communication on wavelengths
And frequencies that only
The best in the game can decipher
Since these are mysterious codes
Of the intuitive
Brazil are in Qatar
The announcement is emphatic
On everybody’s lips
Every advertising hoarding
Global platform, media darlings
Who adore the Brazilian mentality
Sign writing their art forms
Across the frontiers
Coastal headlands of our times
Brazil World Cup manna from heaven
Bliss, how privileged we are
Honoured to be in their company
Carvers of stars around Orion
Loving parents of a football
Caring and compassionate exponents
Of the game, renowned for
Being who they are and who they were
Harmonious, in touch with the
Finer, finest arts and crafts
Richarlison’s bicycle kick brilliance
A moment frozen in time
The goal we’ll remember through the ages
They are the ultimate standard bearers

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