Football Poets

The ladies are here

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Not long to go now
Tomorrow the Lionesses
Gather their pride together
Suitably leonine
Fiercely surveying
The Aussie outback
Where the koala and wombat
Seek sanctuary
From the England girls
With World Cup aspirations
The Lionesses, swishing
Predatory tails
Hungry for meat
Tomorrow Haiti
Now there’s a first
The nation who gave
Us the heroic icon
73 years ago
Sending convulsive,
Shock waves
Through English hearths
And homely comforts
When Joe Gaetjens
Born into the comforting
Arms of Haitian parenthood
Sent tremors through the
World Cup global family
His goal left Blighty
Speechless and dumbfounded
Billy Wright’s buccaneers
England caught off guard
America beat the English
At their own game
With honourable intentions
None of us had ever imagined
Rub astonished eyes
The totally unexpected
A brutal punch to the solar
Plexus, stomach reeling with
The raw blow of a World Cup
Giant killing
So tomorrow revenge
Should be sweet as life
The ladies hunting retribution
For unforgivable misdemeanours
Trespassing on the territory
Of England’s glorious glory
Normal service resumed surely
Mary Earps protecting the England goal
Milly Bright, Alex Greenwood, Esme Morgan
And Jesse Morgan providing backbone, the
Strongest spine, pillars of vertebrae
Immovable as the thousand year old beech tree
Then in the engine room Laura Coombs,
Jordan Nobbs, Georgia Stanway
Stoking fires, heaving mighty
Shovel loads of coal into
Midfield life and vibrant activity
And of course
Rachel Daly, Lauren Hemp,
Chloe Kelly and Bethany England
Blessed with the Midas finishing touch
So it’s time for girl power
Haiti beautifully exotic
But for English this is your year
Your time
Time to redress the balance
For the men’s greatest day
In 1966 when the world stopped
On its axis and Sir Alf’s hardy
And doughty warriors
Transformed the sporting landscape
Forever more but hopefully
Once again now
Wind the clock forward
To the present day
57 years later
Girls demonstrate
This feasibility study
We can do it
We know we can do it
Not the enduring luxuries
Of Wembley
But the other side of the
World where once Kylie and
Jason plighted their troth
In neighbourly alliances
Soft bars of soap operas
And Dame Edna smashed
Down satirical boundaries
Everything in the world of Oz
Will bring us football wizards
Goals galore
Girls you must be able
To hear the bugles of fate
Calling
A flying start from the blocks
World Cup victory
Savoured with just the
Right flavours
Where English patriotism
Will reign on the plain
Of Perth, Dunedin, Melbourne,
Sydney and presumably Wellington
To boot
Oh waltz Matilda
To your hearts content
Fly the St George flag
Across the bronze hues
Of cornfields and farmlands
England expects
But Haiti first
Patience is a virtue
Lands of the possible
In Lionesses we trust

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