poem of the day 04.22.14

the world cup

british soccer hooligans take the national rail

and are drunk on beer before noon

case upon case of foster’s pounders

that they’re tossing around fuzzy seats like lawn darts

as they shout about players from the past

and chant team songs in my ear

while i’m trying to read the sea-wolf by jack london

i can’t even drown them out with my headphones

can hear their r&b music above the david bowie

watch helplessly as they play computer games

on their cell phones and then try to rip apart

the national rail seats when they lose

and these are the old fans, the geezers

gray-haired, fifty year-old men built like mountains

with stacks of empties crushed in front of them

or rolling on the floor of the train

old bastards on a gent’s weekend away from their wives

bitching about their women

bitch about each other’s women

threatening to smash skulls when they get to liverpool

all over a soccer match

the younger ones are two cars up

blasting music from five different smart phones

terrorizing the tourists and their girlfriends

drunk dancing in the small aisles and saying

‘scuse me, mate, when they bump into me

like they’re telling me to watch it next time i need to piss

i wonder what these guys would think of american soccer fans

because american soccer fans are kind of effete

thin, wispy men and women

looking for yet another excuse to wear scarves

i was on a train packed with american soccer fans once

they were all drinking iced coffee and playing on facebook

you could hear a pin drop

while one of these blokes on this death ride

screams bloody murder over a goal from six years ago

and looks primed to put a pin through his best friend’s eye

if it’s even suggested that the foster’s might run out

i’d love to see american soccer fans mix with this breed

place an easy bet on who’d come off of this train alive

film it for posterity and my own amusement

and watch it on the television over and over this summer

call it the world cup.