World Cup Soccer (An American View)

So slow, I watch the grass grow
So quick, I miss a corner-kick.

Head skill; breaks the score Nil.
Drama Queens, by hits unseen.

Off-side play, that’s so Gay.
Unpronounceable names, on jerseys claim.

Cards of yellow, players bellow.
Cards of red, players dread.

Jabulani is in flight; Goalie fright.
Is ball in net? Is there a score yet?

Team USA seen; wait till 2014.
Can it be? Soccer played from, ‘sea-to –shining-sea’?

The French blew it; in an adieu fit.
The Italians, wow; beat a hasty ciao.

Our English friends; lost their Beckham bends.
The Germans scored like-mad; then met their Durbangrad.

Team Mexico; pronto adios.
South American teams, maybe? Hasta la vista baby!

Two Koreas came; oh, to see That game.
Nippon hot as fire, alas, sayonara.

An African venue; with teams that are new.
See, Nigeria, Ghana; hear Vuvuzela.

South Africa is a winner, in South hemisphere winter.
Apartheid, no; plays a historical side-show.

Republica Espana, soccer’s Top-Banana.
Holland, as such; were in Dutch.

The tourney ends; foes leave as friends.
Back in four; USA to roar!

The Woods Campground Memorial Grove (an Epitaph in a Poem)

A boulder lies beside the pathway.
The path open, beckons me,
To
enter-
Melancholy surrounds: gay lightness surrenders.
Quiet, and alone, I ponder the names,
on
wooden
crosses-
I commune with the dead;
no ceremony, just the familiarity of
those
names-
I come to reconcile my own life,
with
Death.


(The Woods Campground/Lehighton PA 7/4/10)