On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month we commemorate those lost in two world wars, the first of which was the war to end all wars. Poets write about war. Homer’s Iliad is the story of Troy, the Trojan Horse, Paris, Achilles, and Helen the fairest of them all. Perhaps [...]
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 [...]
From a cricketing point of view the aficionados will be eager to see how England’s fledging spin-twins, Swannie and Monty, make out. Are they Laker and Lock or Embers and Tuffers? At Worcester how will Captain Bell and other wannabe England batters fair against the Aussie attack, where Mitchell Johnson, the stand-out quick of either [...]
All incidental, like prime ministers’
question times each side of antipodean hustings
in election year, except volley and retort
are hard ball delivered at ninety miles an hour.
Anything else wouldn’t be cricket.
This is my father’s day pressie from Kay and Laurel on the recently revarnished kitchen table of a wicket which I used to hide under as a lad since the days when born in Coventry. This is why I’m a bear – Warwickshire through and through, even though not a drop of English blood courses through my veins
Courage Of Convictions
Some good, some bad, and some ordinary
people the wrong side of the law to hold
their breath against the creak of deck, rope and
canvas; fixed blank stars slowly alter course
to form a rough southern cross. Realign antipodes
Of lives, destiny and political aspirations.
Now history. Not then. No recompense,
No going back to a dense world of [...]
The Adelaide Oval – 1st December 2006 – end of play England 1st innings 266/3Paul Collingwood
98 not out overnight Adelaide, Second Test Day One.
ct Gilchrist b Clark 206
I shan’t get out to this man,
It’s not just I’m English and he’s Australian,
I shan’t get out to this man.
It’s not just he’s done me too often before,
(last [...]
Perth Players
The Demon Panesar
You become yourself as you reach the crease
Gently poised paces, all limbs leaned to slight
Opponents’ fraught intent. Deft, accurate,
no whimsical flight; quick arm at its height
injects lethal charm to bewitch them out.
You need show no mercy until they leave.
5 for 94 Australia’s first innings of 244
Desert Island
Left, deserted, undefeated
how might you have [...]
