Political Consequences
Games before games are statements
of intent, demonstrations, fleet reviews,
salutes and salutations, rocket launchers
trundle across the square gleaming.
Results are less material than
intended intimidation of similarly
belligerent opposition – psychological
salvoes across the bows of alleged superiority,
puts whomsoever securely in their place.
Worcester and Warwick are baronial hosts
to sallys and jousts of national pride:
Hussey and Cooke rally their orders,
Ponting [...]
All Edgbaston
All Edgbaston glistens in stillness
rich twitch’d thick leav’d tree-tops rhythm the breeze
that doves fletch, fetch, stitch and stretch to the skies
beneath a bustard eye below cumulus.
Squawk’d calls, claps, smatters snatch passages in time,
balls and bats enchained to their sovereign rest
that plays out summer fields’ palimpsest:
daze to days call over without rhyme
to succour fulfilment near [...]
Cellophane
prophylactic
against undue wear
before testing the wary
a kite-marked sphere
ruby of stitched leather
awaits conquest of measures
upon the most measured pitch
to tempt the temptress
to give and lose all
modesty unbound
twenty-two yards a catalogue
of denial and penetration
will it swing rear seam? each entry
roughs up the diadem till too old
or innings done by conquest
or declaration
all manner of manipulation
lop-sided thigh polish
occult knowledge
to [...]
