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 our poet laureate |
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A New Poem on the Subject of Football  |
Our team had stumbled into
football playoffs
Despite its gourmet-Swiss-cheese passing defense.
High excitement in the sun-drenched stadium surged
Till it was palpable.
Home-team jerseys speckled top-deck slopes
Like bright red poppies in the grass of mountain fields.
Stranger talked to stranger,
And the stands rocked wildly with supreme anticipation.
The visiting New Yorkers
furnished rain for our parade
By roaring out two dozen points ahead
With pinpoint passes to the zones patrolled
By our team’s greenest young defender
Who was groping, supine, choking in the dust,
The whole day long.
All the while our runners met stone walls
Of massive linesmen
Tough as granite from the Palisades
Turning back each parry and attack,
Leaving us immobilized and paralyzed.
The score seemed insurmountable,
Our lot as hopeless as the charge of light brigades.
Even hometown faithful wavered,
Turning faithless in their stone-faced stream toward exits.
Suddenly the fortunes swung,
as sudden as a tidal wave.
Stung, our guys invoked a sped-up offense
Challenging, bewildering the New York side.
Offensive surf began to boil and thunder.
In fast success our elusive star Garcia threw the ball
To colleagues left and right and center,
Constantly advancing, like Napoleon’s stellar brigadiers,
Despite a goal line barely visible upon the far horizon.
That giant paragon of strength named Owens
Caught a little pass, slipped from the grasp of duo tacklers
And, with grand goliath strides,
Ran his marathon to hallelujah,
Opening the first of several flood gates.
Owens’ inspiration
revitalized our flagging stalwarts
As we scored and scored again.
We couldn’t budge that line of granite,
Forcing swivel-hipped Garcia, nimble as a rabbit,
Going ’round and in between the crashing helmets
With his snaking runs in lightning scampers,
Leaving grass stains on the cheeks of his pursuers.
Earthquake cheers shook every column
When our boys emerged a point ahead,
And fans who still remained exulted with their eardrum-splitting
roars.
But no!
A yet more unpredictable finale (spelled disaster) loomed.
The final seconds saw the visitors march down the field
Till just a gimme kick was left to overturn our miracle.
They readied for the kick,
What ho!
The pigskin, in rebellion, was skidding on the ground!
Alert, a New York player scooped it up and threw it toward the
goal,
Where utter chaos ruled around a pile of flags and bodies,
Plus a ball that bounced about,
As crazy-wild as any frisky mustang in the Foothills.
When dust had cleared,
the arbitrers declared that we had won,
Unleashing yet more roars of ecstasy
That rang and rang around Embarcadero eateries.
The greatest comeback ever, papers said,
Too good to be all true, and right they were:
The refs had erred, disgracefully,
And visitors were dealt a great injustice,
In a statement-aftermath from the highest football judges.
The victory was as hollow as a victory conceivably could be.
Still, I’ll not forget
that magic football day of unsurpassed euphoria,
The exultation through the night,
And all the luck of seeing hometown’s greatest,
Most supremely tainted
Comeback ever
In the history of this hallowed franchise.
3Com Park, San Francisco, 1/5/03
Final score: SF 39, NY
38.
© 2003 by Paul Hertelendy. The illustrations are from IMSI's
Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael,
CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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