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Madsummer Thoughts For An Alien

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 some madsummer thoughts for an alien
and how they’d perceive us down here
in our shopping store grounds with their lights and their sounds
when forty odd thousand all cheer

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 is it something akin to most planets
this Star- Warsy Potter pastime –
with our Western designs in these decadent times
would they shudder at what they would find?
in our glorified temples with thirty foot photos
of players in red white and blue
would they think it a game or some theatre where pain
is a battle we just love to view

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 if they flew over mountains and jungles
where the posts are from branches of trees
where it’s dry as a bone and the goals are just stones
they’d find balls made from bundles of leaves
but the lines of the pitches are always the same
and from high look like mystical signs
whether carved in the sand or just chalked out by hand
in some back street or way down the mines

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 and they greet us on billboards wherever we go
they surround us like leaders of old
from José Mourinho to that bloke Robinho
from Cairo to Stow On The Wold
it’s obsessive depressive regressive
it’s a love and hate crazy affair
you can reach for the top you can scream til you drop
or just watch with your head in despair

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 you can tell him the things that concern you
our planet our wars and our ocean
but try as we may we will probably say
it’s the passion the skill and emotion
it’s the fathomless something that takes us
it’s a sport that’s careering away
and it has the same name as the old people’s game
but it’s totally different today

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 so you’d just have to smile at an alien
and hope that he’s just like E.T
but to try and explain why we worship the game
it’s not easy for you or for me

Notes

These are 4 genuine answers/explanations from Yr 5/6/7 students (to an alien who’d just landed here) from recent workshops.(.advertsing agencies eat your hearts out)!

my favourite..
at Chelsea: “…an excuse for men to get out of doing household chores”
or..
at Fulham :” ballet with a ball on grass”
or..
at Nottingham Forest::”walking advertisments playing a game”
or even …
at Portsmouth : “it’s just a game with two teams a couple of goals and a ball … .that’s all ”

at West Brom :” it’s rubbish ..and i don’t know what all the fuss is about but my dad’s mad ..he just completely totally loves it. He just talks about it and thinks about it all the time !

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/madsummer-thoughts-for-an-alien/