Football Poets

Walt Whitman likes Crop Circles

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 So Engerlandos! I cross, once more, the spumy Atlantic,
I cross, once more, the surging time and tide of the deep,
To bring a New World malediction to your dusty summer shores;
I sing the battle hymn of the Republic and strike Old Glory,
As I pilot my rope-runged raft past the mazed surfers of Wales,
I a seaweed strewn Poseidon,
They mere mortals moving through their motions –
On landing, I immediately collected two large blue stones,
Lichen-kissed megaliths already forming in my mind –
See the Stone Age geometry and cerebrated lunar alignment!
See the moonstruck dolmens and celebrated trilothons!
All of these visions will come into being
When I come to Wiltshire armed with corn dolly curses,
To call down misfortune on all those who badmouth Swindon Town F.C.!
Swindon! True friend of the Republic!
Artificers and mechanics and forge and farm hands linked in Democracy!
A Democracy whose handshake o’erspreads ocean and continent!
Swindon! Who can forget your august steam locomotive visit in 1927?
Not I dear Robin! For when the United States turned its back on Europa,
You reminded us of our duty and our debt to the old cold continent!
You alone dear Swindonia: Virtute et Industria!
And so, dear Robin, your season will be safe with me;
Last season’s draws will now bring points, all three.
And so to work – I donned my cloak of invisibility,
Thereby obscuring from mortal view
My seaweed strewn red and white bobble hat and scarf,
Neatly embroidered with all the names of last season’s heroes,
And took a riverine route, via Severn, Thames, Avon and Kennett,
With just an occasional overland Ridgeway drag of my stones,
When I grew bored of reed and kingfisher flash,
Until I at last reached ancestral Avebury,
Home of corn dolly women and Wiltshire men,
And what at first sight seemed to be the usual hippy types;
But beneath their garish vests of tie and dye,
I could quite clearly descry
Football tattoos of hate and enmity,
For I had stumbled upon a coven of 23 bearded football fans,
Men and women of Nationwide Division 2,
All intent upon crop circle incantation and blasphemous execration,
Their sorcery intent upon Swindon relegation;
But such skulduggery unearthed in the nick of time and tide!
And so to work – I quickly constituted a bran new stone circle,
Utilising my long dragged bluestones and local dolmens,
And short-sleeping within its necromantic algebraic harmonies,
I crept forth that night to magic a new Circean crop circle creation,
Its perfect chiromantic sequence as familiar as the back of a hand,
But recognisable to only me,
But perfect in its potency,
For when viewed aerially,
The seeming crop circle kaleidoscope
Signifies the following in the vortices of the barley,
STFC P 46 W 26 D 16 L4 F 75 A 32 P 94;
And there is a sub-text interwoven through this corn field palimpsest,
Through the convoluted arabesques, arcs, radii
And Demeter diameters and Ceres series,
In font size so small that only a hawk, swift or sky-lark
Could see its covert existence,
“Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter.”
But, enter, the 23 did,
And the next morning, 23 poppies appeared as if by magic,
And grew to flower with equally magical speed,
Their fumes spread all around the geometric grain,
And 23 football supporters would never breath again;
At this point, satisfied with my night time’s work,
I swam through chalk-land river to reach Southampton,
And so embark for home and pineland rest,
Sweet season’s adieu to my Robin Red breast.

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