Tuesday, April 22, 2014

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.
                                               

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