Football Poets

The eve of the World Cup

It’s the eve of the World Cup
On the other side of the Atlantic
Dawn will break over Times Square
New York will be beside itself
Overjoyed and terribly privileged
Their chance to shine
On the world stage
It’s the soccer bandwagon
The jubliant jubilee
Back in the USA
Of course it’ll be a good day
We know it and you know it
Every day for the rest
Of our lives, joyous
Jumping, jiving by
Juke boxes of the 1950s
When Bill Hayley rocked
The world and universe
Bound to grab it with both arms
A hotbed of interest, intrigue
Loving their soccer brethren
The Statue of Liberty
Proudly upright and historic
Welcome to the world
America breaks bread with
Football and soccer
The highest plateau
Unmistakably so
Stars and stripes
Splashed across every page,
Millions of TV channels
Singing the praises
Of the Beautiful Game
Good Morning America
You’ve got this one
Radio stations with
Names plucked from
Every imaginable
Letter of the alphabet
Breaking news
Are you ready Fox,
CNN? this is the
Moment you’ve been waiting for
On VAR’s, offside,
Sprays across the nation
But America has been blase
And enlightened since
The days of Martin Luther King,
Theodore Roosevelt, Truman,
Kennedy, how tragically cruel
They know everything about
The round ball game
Back in 1994 Diana Ross
Taught our friends across the pond
About penalties
The essential rudiments of soccer
Remember the disintegrating net
Cross bar and posts
In that opening ceremony?
So do we
But the good folk of
Open and opulent Ohio
Mellow and magnificent Michigan
Fulsome and formidable Florida
Delectable Detroit
Wild and wanton Washington
Colourful and indeed courtly
California because they do dignity too
The towering skyscrapers
Soaring into the heights
Of pulsing electricity that
Lights up the country
Like the proverbial Christmas tree
Teeming tourists milling
Around salt beef delis
Always coffee and doughnuts
Pretzels for lunch
How is the American appetite
For World Cup football feasts?
The magic of Motown
Always in the air
You can breathe it
Special and authentic
Yellow taxi cabs
Just incredulous at
Soccer’s global and gargantuan
Reach into the farthest corners
Of pagodas, shrines and temples
Where football is a religion
Worshipped and idolised
Neymar, M’Bappe, Kane,
Bellingham, English
Roast beef and roasties
The embodiment of Sunday lunchtime
Fastidious Germans, always
Efficiency personified
Triumphant seemingly ad infinitum
Spain and France
Guardians of purity and beauty
Always hovering at the gates
Of aesthetically pleasing
Football played on the deck
Where it should always belong
Sweet and scientific
Passing from feet to feet
Rather than the orbit
Of blue American skies
Down South paddle steamers
Will be churning in Tennessee,
Alabama alive, Mississipi
Will be mesmerised by the game
That Europe once took to its heart
Romanticised and glorified
Dallas dallying with the great and good
Dreaming the impossible vision
Of the Jules Rimet Cup
Yes America, this is your time
Your day, your moment
In the sun, soccer
For ever more

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