pick, pack, puck, pock

"The fellows were practising long shies and bowling lobs and slow
twisters. In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the
balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound
of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a
fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl." *


Tea in the pavilion,
oiled bats, white trousers
with a crease, dear boy:
England’s true gift
to the sporting world
is an analogy, an elegy
of Empire. Taken up
by barefoot niggers
and Australian diggers
who beat the pants off the Poms
in spite of bodyline bowling.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
temporise, complain, indeed you must,
but you are thumped, these days,
in every single thrilling sport
you ever invented: football,
rugby, even bloody badminton,
and, of course, dear wistful cricket.

Added to this
in a rather English twist,
the news announces a crime most foul,
an oddly seamless cheek by jowl
take on a tale by Agatha Christie.
I could not, in conscience, make this up:
but, unless the news has missed me,
MURDER at the Cricket World Cup?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6484187.stm

------------------------------------
* -- James Joyce, the last two sentences of Chapter One of "A Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man".
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Saint Patrick

In America they drink green beer,
which I'd have to say is bloody queer,
but hey! they're Yanks,
and we owe them thanks
for the money and guns.

Fifth Avenue gets sealed off completely,
the (Irish) cops do the whole thing neatly,
and it would soothe the soul of Henry Grattan
to see how the Irish control Manhattan
for at least one day.

They all wear green and get pissed as a newt;
green pets and babies, they reckon it's cute,
but the one thing that really makes me shiver
is when they pour green dye in the Chicago river,
but, hey! the Windy City.

I'm inclined to lodge a formal complaint
about this bleedin' foreign saint:
He brought us a religion, so what about it?
I think we'd have been better off without it,
but it's too late now.

God Almighty, why do you never step in
when people below keep living in sin?
You couldn't give a rough rodeo duck.
Carry on, little people, and the best of good luck
but don't forget the payments.

St. Patrick went up to the Hill of Slane,
and upstaged the king with cold disdain.
He lit the sacred fire: this is true and not just reputed.
A wiser king would have had him executed
but this dumb cluck came from Kerry.

C'mere to me you, says the king, so Patrick came,
and their interview established his lasting fame
because the king endowed him with royal permission
to teach his new doctrine and drive to perdition
the rank and file Druids.

And this is where I come in, a bit late, I know,
since me uncle lost his powers at a single blow.
Well, he was an uncle sixteen hundred years ago,
but it's just as well ye Sassenachs know
we don't take history lightly.

So now today they want me to say
Happy St Patrick! Me arse. He pulled off a hat-trick.
He and his bloody shamrocks destroyed a cozy source of income,
undermined the Old Order, made us proto-Europeans,
and I know damn well I can tag and link him
to everything since.
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