dedalus Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 (edited) Train train a sky of blue, a winter morning crisp and tight like ice, like trouser creases. My heart lifts, it rises, as I head off in the wrong direction looking at the hard-etched houses lined against an azure sky, viewing the sharpcut yellow stubble of a tiny rice meadow that can feed five families angled between two rather squat office buildings with a flourish of Chinese characters. The return train, it seems I am running late and I couldn’t care less. The fellows are still waiting for the stadium bus, knocking back tinnies at the stop, and then there is Aya, a sad Filipina with purple contacts and a helluva bad story. I have heard so many of them that I feel like a hidden priest, perhaps I should parade in rough Christian robes to hide the ice within. I could learn to like Aya, trouble is Aya's been "liked" before, repeatedly, been badly done over and so I’m only half listening, as you do, politely. Then the match begins, and it goes on for a bit, with oohs and aahs from the crowd. I used to love this stuff, this rugby, in my young youth I played on the green lumpy fields of three continents, one of the gay silly things I did before old age took over. Rugby, savants say, is a metaphor for war, for the playing fields of Eton: untrue, but it can be physical chess when the many healthy resplendent lads stop fussing around a badly bouncing ball, with their girls all bright and smiling, pretending an interest they could never conceivably possess in the furthest tiniest re-cess of their capacious rapacious female brains. Aya is looking over now, and I'm sorry, but I'm not looking back. I am on the track of an over-priced fizzy beer; if a man won’t drink, he could be labelled an Irish queer for trailing the ladies instead of the booze. No, no, for all of my life I've been looking, searching, waiting to choose, hope sadly slipping away. I reckon in the end we all may lose, even in the hardass canyons of the USA where rugby, I presume, is a pussy game. We had a joke going, one of them weak no-brainers, as the pink-cheeked girls, annoyed, yanked off their boots, figure that one out; but then Shem tapped me upside the head. Fuckin hurt, too. Didn’t even know the gentleman, a situation soon and forever about to change. Stick out your tongue. Wha’? More, more, more, is that the best you can do? Was I talking too much? Glaarh --; glaa...aaarh!! Roll your eyes: flex your knees and elbows, Jesus Christ, man, are you bleedin paraplegic? and what happened that tongue, that tongue, it should be licking the end of your pimply nose! The fuckwit silly losers they send me down these times would wear the balls off the Virgin Mary had she had any, beggin yer pardon, Ma'rm. Sir? What? Can I stop licking my nose and go back to the crap daily rhythms of ordinaryl life? Ho, Irish are we? Limber up, Paddy, for I’m going to teach you once, once and once only, for the first and for the last time, how a man should feel, how he should live ... and dance! -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Haka is a Maori war dance. The New Zealand rugby team performs it before every international match to intimidate their opponents. It works. Edited December 29, 2010 by dedalus Quote Drown your sorrows in drink, by all means, but the real sorrows can swim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted December 24, 2010 Share Posted December 24, 2010 Hi Brendan, I am not sure I followed this one. It seemed to ramble from one thought to another and I kind of got lost in it. But I love the sound of it, the rhythm the sonics. You are certainly are a master of lyrical narratives. ~~Tink Quote ~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~ For permission to use this work you can write to Tinker1111@icloud.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larsen M. Callirhoe Posted December 24, 2010 Share Posted December 24, 2010 love it. i understood everything. you are a master of narrical lyrics. Quote Larsen M. Callirhoe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoelJosol Posted December 25, 2010 Share Posted December 25, 2010 Is the N in the poem a rugby player who took a train ride to a stadium to play? But, the mention of an overpriced beer meant he is in some pub. The title 'Hakka' made me think that content is Chinese-related or located. But, the content did not refer to it. A mention of a Filipina and her character is not clear but infers that she is a whore. So, is the N watching rugby from some pub, frequented by Filipina whores? Is the N a typical, rugby lover or player and his use of offensive language is authentic? That sort of disrupts the flow for me, Brendan. But, I agree with what was said about the sonics. Quote "Words are not things, and yet they are not non-things either." - Ann Lauterbach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dedalus Posted December 26, 2010 Author Share Posted December 26, 2010 The Hakka, or Haka, is a Maori war dance that the New Zealand rugby team performs before every international match to intimidate their opponents. It seems to work since the New Zealand All-Blacks (uniforms) hardly ever seem to lose. When they do happen to lose the whole country (including all the sheep who significantly outnumber the human population) plunges into mourning. The poem is a riff about an ex-rugby player living in Japan who arrives by train to meet up with friends and watch a game; afterwards they go on to a party with the players, some of whom are Kiwis, i.e. New Zealanders. Quote Drown your sorrows in drink, by all means, but the real sorrows can swim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 Wow, clearly we are worlds apart. ~~Tink Quote ~~ © ~~ Poems by Judi Van Gorder ~~ For permission to use this work you can write to Tinker1111@icloud.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoelJosol Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 Thanks, Brendan. Your clarification confirmed the images your poem presented to me. Japan. Close enough to China :-) Quote "Words are not things, and yet they are not non-things either." - Ann Lauterbach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larsen M. Callirhoe Posted December 26, 2010 Share Posted December 26, 2010 i loved it before you edited it. maybe you were being polite by editing the boner part but that was how i acted and thought. maybe i should right some of my horror-filled thoughts in my poems instead just my feelings and emotions. vic Quote Larsen M. Callirhoe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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