This is written over two months after the event – a lovely fortnight straight-after in Brittanny, two weeks of my right/write arm paralysed with arthritis, then a month sorting out the effects of a manic episode, intervened. (Yes, folks, yrs truly is a bi-polar, or manic-depressive. It goes with the territory, ‘All poets are mad,’ [...]
Over two months have passed since the destination of the Ashes was determined, so I’ve eschewed going back to my notes and rather reflect using memory as a sifter.
Overall it’s been a crazy series. At Cardiff, Australia should have won by a country mile except they let Anderson and Panesar bat through to an unfeasible [...]
Affixed to the original urn…..
When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn;
Studds, Steel, Read and Tylcote return, return.
The welkin will ring loud
The great crowd will feel proud
Seeing Barlow & Bates with the urn, the urn
And the rest coming home with the urn
the urn, the urn, the urn
I’ve added an extra line in italics since [...]
Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child
By by, lully lullay
O sisters too, how may we do
for to preserve this day
this poor youngling for whom we do sing
by by, lully lullay
Herod the king in his raging
charged he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
all young children to slay
That woe is me, poor child for [...]
When this Ashes Test is over
No more joy or misery
Let’s shake hands with erstwhile strangers
We’ll cherish present company
No more pints of polite clapping
No more shouting out for more
Shake hands with those beside you
They’re your neighbours from next door
Sung with great feeling and Welsh choralness
A modification of the lyrics of When This Lousy War is Over, from [...]
Ashes
To the victor the spoils
To losers, desolation
Dark doors darken dark doors
Shuts out welkin light
Puts wood in hole, shafts
Of night shadows the clacked
Clappered tun of celebration
Wrings, wrings the pain and din
Until the black tattoo stops beating
Bleak timpani within each ear’s dismal drum
Before blood dangles ruby red from each lobe
A mute sign that you are dead. [...]
Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child
By by, lully lullay
O sisters too, how may we do
for to preserve this day
this poor youngling for whom we do sing
by by, lully lullay
Herod the king in his raging
charged he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
all young children to slay
That woe is me, poor child for [...]
Another great day for the Engerland, The Sundays will be full of it, so I won’t bother with the cricket itself, except to say why today’s poem isn’t about Trott’s ton. It may be the TMS Champagne Moment (my pop still would be Katich run-out of said Trott) but the real innings which changed the character of [...]
The Ballad of Sir Andrew Strauss
ALBION sits in doleful frown,
Drinking most of the time:
‘O whair O whair will I get a steely skipper
To sail this ship o’ mine.’
Up and spoke a bearded miller
Sat at the ECB,
’Sir Andrew Strauss is the best skipper
To sail against history.’
Albion quills broadest honour
To sign it for Angleland,
And duly messages Sir Andrew,
Doff’d caps, [...]
If the game ends tomorrow, England will hold the Ashes. Nuff said.
Stuart Broad
Kneel to no one, not least those who cannot kneel,
Their bended knee arising from regal labours
In might and main to honour king and country
against the mightiest warriors from other lands
in fair contest and proud sacrifice
through surgery to fight and fight on. England’s
braw champion’s [...]
