Football Poets

Sod’s Law

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 It all started when I couldn’t remember the meaning of a word;
“Aleatory” was the culprit,
And so I looked it up,
Unlike my brother,
Who said the only words he looked up
Were ladies’ dresses;
Anyway, there it was,
“Aleatory”,
Nothing to do with William Hague,
Instead, “depending on the throw of a dice;
(Mus. & Art) involving random choice by performer”;
Fair do’s, I thought, I won’t forget it this time,
And went off to work,
Reflecting on the relationship between the poetic and the existential,
The literary and the ontological,
In a footballing sense, you understand,
Like the manager – speak and Atko – speak of the defeated,
“We was robbed”;
“Our luck’s got to change soon”;
“We beat ourselves”;
“If only that one had gone in”;
“We haven’t had the run of the ball all season”;
“We didn’t get the rub of the green”;
“What can you do when the ref’s against you?”;
“They had 12 men out there”;
“We’ve had a terrible injury run, I’ve never known anything like it”;
And the victorious,
“It all evens out by the end of the season”;
“Swings and roundabouts”;
“At the end of the day the league tables don’t lie”;
“You get what you deserve in football, just like life.”
I was musing on this parrot and moon talk,
And the way that there’s more parrot than moon,
As I wandered to the cash dispenser,
Desperate for money with the children pleading poverty and all;
It was a choice of 2 cash machines,
So I feinted left,
And then with a gliding body swerve I moved to the right,
As another customer arrived,
For I thought common politeness demanded I leave them the first dispenser,
By removing my personage from what they might regard as their space,
Their mind probably fast-set on immediately obtaining dosh,
With no diversions or obstructions,
And, anyway, you never know what strangers are like do you?
So the furthest dispenser it was,
In went my card,
Crunch went the machine,
And Hey Presto!
The card was eaten,
The machine broke,
Closed down,
And left me with no card and no money,
But just the impotence of a drowning man,
Seeing my future life flash before me,
The prospect of endless telephone loops and queues,
Cancelling cards and debts,
In the manic clash of bureaucracy and paranoia.
I glanced at the person to my left,
As she pocketed her card and cash,
Turning on the proverbial footballer’s sixpence
As she disappeared happily and completely repletely home,
Mission accomplished;
I stared at my cash machine,
And reflected on the nature of irony
And the aleatory,
The sliding, rather than early doors,
The random throw of the dice and the random choice by performer,
The false dice used by Elizabethan coneycatchers,
The dice called Fullams,
Dice loaded with quicksilver and lead;
And the rather more curt, but heartfelt expression,
Sod’s Law, leapt to mind.
I returned home a sadder and wiser man,
I shall never look up the meaning of a word again.
The brother was right.

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