Hi Matt,
Hey, this is great. The mood, and the characters of both the teams, as well
as the last man are all just how it is in so many places in so, so many
games - probably in so, so many countries and counties as well as in
Leicester!
If you were to fiddle with it then think about the "drowning defeat" phrase
(maybe a bit of a cliche?) and the "batting back bored" (cos bored belongs
to the next line in how I read it) and it "could" be that the words batting
back might be replaced... (I'm thinking of the guy's face, his contrasting
expression to the bored fielders...)
But such tinkering merely makes a grand poem even grander.
Bob


>From: "Merritt, Matt - Leic. Mercury"
><[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Last Man
>Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:27:41 +0100
>
>Apologies to any of you who hate cricket, or just cricket poems.
>
>
>Last Man
>
>No chance now, not so much as a glimmer,
>and no use relying on the English weather.
>This is his summer - not the poets' spell
>cast by white-clad ritual, but the long walk
>from a dressing room thick with sweat, steam
>and the slow afternoon's deep heat,
>arriving at a crease cratered and scarred,
>team-mates already drowning defeat,
>lights showing bright from the Welfare's bar.
>
>Then the urge to go down all guns blazing,
>bat flailing through the frantic arc from
>desperate to glorious, but each week instead
>this same stonewall stand. The stained
>Gunn and Moore snug in his hands, full face
>flush against out-thrust pad. Batting back bored
>looks from beneath the gathered baseball caps.
>And walking off again unconquered, intact.
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