FOOTBALL POEMS

Fur And Feathers

The emus formed a football team
Up Walgett way;
Their dark-brown sweaters were a dream
But kangaroos would sit and scream
.....

Banjo Paterson

Is My Team Ploughing

“Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”
.....

A. E. Housman

Contrary Theses (ii)

One chemical afternoon in mid-autumn,
When the grand mechanics of earth and sky were near;
Even the leaves of the locust were yellow then,

.....

Wallace Stevens

The Lout

For Sunday's play he never makes excuse,
But plays at taw, and buys his Spanish juice.
Hard as his toil, and ever slow to speak,
Yet he gives maidens many a burning cheek;
.....

John Clare

More For The Money

What are the wild waves saying now that their lengths are changed?
In a manner most dismaying are the stations now aranged.
And I twist and twirl and twiddle at the knobs, then, with a screech
Come sounds of a sobbing fiddle and a League of Nations speech,
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Ann Arbor Variations

1
Wet heat drifts through the afternoon
like a campus dog, a fraternity ghost
waiting to stay home from football games.
.....

Frank O'hara

Fresh Air

I

At the Poem Society a black-haired man stands up to say
-You make me sick with all your talk about restraint and mature talent!
.....

Kenneth Koch

Is My Team Ploughing

"Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?"
.....

Alfred Edward Housman

The Alcázar

The General now lives in town;
He's eighty odd, they say;
You'll see him strolling up and down
The Prada any day.
.....

Robert Service

Extreme Orient

A barge adrift the Perfumed River-
reclining beneath a parasol
is the courtesan Tigress waving her fan
-barge floats past village and pagoda,
.....

S. K. Kelen

Passion

They say passion is that thing you find joy when you do
They say passion is a fire it ignite the inside of you
Until it controls you
And becomes you
.....

Joy Chinweze

Erb

Do you know 'Erb? Now, there's a dinkum sport.
If football's on your mind, why, 'Erb's the sort
To put you wise. It's his whole end and' aim.
Keen? He's as keen as mustard on the game.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Poetics

You know the old story Ann Landers tells
About the houseife in her basement doing the wash?
She's wearing her nightie, and she thinks, "Well, hell,
I might's well put this in as well," and then
.....

Howard Nemerov

The Old Days - And The New

â??Mid wattle scents and sounds of Spring,
The old man, dreaming in his chair,
Is back where skylarks soar and sing
In sunshine, oâ??er the hills of Clare.
.....

Alice Guerin Crist

A Friendly Game Of Football

We were challenged by The Dingoes - they're the pride of Squatter's Gap-
To a friendly game of football on the flat by Devil's Trap.
And we went along on horses, sworn to triumph in the game,
For the honour of Gyp's Diggings, and the glory of the same.
.....

Edward George Dyson

Disabled

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
.....

Wilfred Owen

Up'ards

'Twere getting dusk, one winter's night,
When up the clough there came in sight,
A lad who carried through the snow,
A banner with this 'ere motto...
.....

Marriott Edgar

Twice A Week The Winter Thorough

Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man's soul.
.....

A. E. Housman

Olives

"Dead people don't like olives,"
I told my partners in eighth grade
dancing class, who never listened
as we fox-trotted, one-two, one-two.
.....

Donald Hall

Uppards

'Twere getting dusk, one winter's night,
When up the clough there came in sight,
A lad who carried through the snow,
A banner with this 'ere motto...
.....

Marriott Edgar

A Retrospective Review

I

Oh, when I was a tiny boy,
My days and nights were full of joy,
.....

Thomas Hood

Mary

The angel of self-discipline, her guardian
Since she first knew and had to go away
From home that spring to have her child with strangers,
Sustained her, till the vanished boy next door
.....

Edgar Bowers

Over The Fence

'Taint my idea uv argument to call a man a fool,
An' I ain't lookin' round for bricks to 'eave at ole man Poole;
But when 'e gets disputin' 'e's inclined to lose 'is 'ead.
It ain't so much 'is choice uv words as 'ow the words is said.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Goalkeeper Joe

Joe Dunn were a bobby for football
He gave all his time to that sport,
He played for the West Wigan Whippets,
On days when they turned out one short.
.....

Marriott Edgar

To Be Amused

You ask me to be gay and glad
While lurid clouds of danger loom,
And vain and bad and gambling mad,
Australia races to her doom.
.....

Henry Lawson

Breathing-time

Peace, perfect peace. . . . Come, lay aside your gun.
The danger zone is past; the gauntlet run.
The bark of Scylla ceases on her shore,
And grim Charybdis threatens us no more.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

A Dialogue Between Two Shepherds

Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton.


WILL. Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
.....

Sir Philip Sidney

Where Is It Clean

when your mother can rise from her place
on the pew during the early service,

early enough that the sun barely fills the sky
.....

Evie Shockley

A Retrospective Review.

I.

Oh, when I was a tiny boy,
My days and nights were full of joy,
.....

Thomas Hood

The Straight Griffin

''Eroes? Orright. You 'ave it 'ow yeh like.
Throw up yer little 'at an' come the glad;
But not too much 'Three-'Earty-Cheers' fer Mike;
There's other things that 'e'll be wantin' bad.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Dire Cure

"First, do no harm," the Hippocratic
Oath begins, but before she might enjoy
such balm, the docs had to harm her tumor.
It was large, rare, and so anomalous
.....

William Matthews

Uncle Jim

'I got no time fer wasters, lad,' sez 'e,
'Give me a man wiv grit,' sez Uncle Jim.
'E bores 'is cute ole eyes right into me,
While I stares 'ard an' gives it back to 'im.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

In Utrumque Paratus

'Then hey for boot and horse, lad !
And round the world away !
Young blood will have its course, lad !
And every dog his day !'â??C. Kingsley.
.....

Adam Lindsay Gordon

In Utrumque Paratus - A Logical Discussion

"Then hey for boot and horse, lad!
And round the world away!
Young blood will have its course, lad!
And every dog his day!"
.....

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Ye Wearie Wayfarer, Hys Ballad In Eight Fyttes: Fytte 04

In Utrumque Paratus
[A Logical Discussion]

“Then hey for boot and horse, lad!
.....

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan

I

In a nation of one hundred fine, mob-hearted, lynching, relenting, repenting millions,
There are plenty of sweeping, swinging, stinging, gorgeous things to shout about,
.....

Vachel Lindsay

The Shepherds Calendar - January- Winters Day

Withering and keen the winter comes
While comfort flyes to close shut rooms
And sees the snow in feathers pass
Winnowing by the window glass
.....

John Clare

The Mutability Of Literature - A Colloquy In Westminster Abbey - Prose

I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought,
In time's great periods shall return to nought.
I know that all the muses' heavenly rays,
.....

Washington Irving

Ye Wearie Wayfarer, Hys Ballad - (in Eight Fyttes)

Fytte I
By Wood and Wold
[A Preamble]

.....

Adam Lindsay Gordon

Old Schooldays

Awake, of Muse, the echoes of a day
Long past, the ghosts of mem'ries manifold --
Youth's memories that once were green and gold
But now, alas, are grim and ashen grey.
.....

Banjo Paterson

My Old Football

& Cuthbert Clarke


You can keep your antique silver and your statuettes of bronze,
.....

John Milton Hayes

The Higher Education

(Harvard's prestige in football is a leading factor. The best players in the leading preparatory schools prefer to study at Cambridge, where they can earn fame on the gridiron. They do not care to be identified with Yale and Princeton.--JOE VILA in the Evening Sun.)

"Father," began the growing youth,
"Your pleading finds me deaf;
.....

Franklin Pierce Adams

Fur And Feathers

The emus formed a football team
Up Walgett way;
Their dark-brown sweaters were a dream
But kangaroos would sit and scream
.....

Banjo Paterson (andrew Barton)

Invention

Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,

.....

Billy Collins

Twice A Week The Winter Thorough

Twice a week the winter thorough
Here stood I to keep the goal:
Football then was fighting sorrow
For the young man's soul.
.....

Alfred Edward Housman

A Friendly Game Of Football

We were challenged by The Dingoes , they're the pride of Squatter's Gap,
To a friendly game of football on the flat by Devil's Trap.
And we went along on horses, sworn to triumph in the game,
For the honour of Gyp's Diggings, and the glory of the same.
.....

Edward Dyson

Autumn Begins In Martins Ferry, Ohio

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
.....

James Arlington Wright

The Alcázar

The General now lives in town;
He's eighty odd, they say;
You'll see him strolling up and down
The Prada any day.
.....

Robert William Service

Blokes

Blokes ~ 'Erb
Do you know 'Erb? Now, there's a dinkum sport.
If football's on your mind, why, 'Erb's the sort
To put you wise. It's his whole end and' aim.
.....

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis

Someday-s Here

Well I've told you someday I'd have a lotta money
And you would see me grinnin' from ear to ear
Look in my pocket this ain't gabbage that I'm foldin' baby
Oh oh someday's here
.....

Shel Silverstein