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Plenty of Room In Le Fut For Soccer
Plenty of room in « Le Foot »* for Soccer
For Doug Vinson at PoetrySoup.com
I
Not long ago King Pelé
Set “le foot” in America
Today his peoples’ muted “Olé”!
Rue the day at Maracana
Now from coast to conniving coast
Your Can-Can gals kick “le balon”*
No Wall in between the goal-posts
To win at summit many a “galon”*
Alright! Keep your cherished football
Iced-hoc-key bounced balls in basket
But let echo corked-leather on “saule”*
Crikey! "le cri-cri"* of “le cricket”
II
Tremble at the hakka-cry of the All Blacks
Cringe before Aussie toughs at Springbok élan
And let them romp with the Six-Nation packs
Over your greens with fifteen Argentinian
Call out to the run-machine Little Master*
And let his blade flash home-runs tout azimut
Over heads of fielders spectators and trainer
And let your millions throb and catapult
Your new knights sans armour in world arena
And gasp at fresh records topple centuries*
On pitch and turf in Tests across suburbia
And join the world in friendly rivalries.
*"Le Foot"or "Le Fut": French for football/soccer.
*"le balon": French for ball.
*"le(s) galon(s)": French for "stripes" as in "to win one's stripes in battle" (gagné ses galons au combat) .
*"le saule": French for the willow tree. "Willow" is metonymy for the cricket bat as the latter is made from the tree.
*"le cri-cri": familiar French for "le grillon", the insect cricket.
*"Little Master", sobriquet of Sachin Tendulkar, the retired legendary Indian test-cricketer, the counterpart of the Brazilian Pelé in soccer. See my poem: "The Little Master: Sachin Tendulkar", my most-read ever poem.
*"centuries": batting records in cricket run into a few centuries, mostly in five-day international test-matches.
(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
Copyright ©
T Wignesan
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