Handful of Dust: An NFC Poetry Slam

Remember the Coffee Klatsch?

The Klatsch is a bunch of friends I worked with in the 90’s. Shin, Cormie, Stod, and I had many things in common: we worked in publishing, were literary dilettantes, admirers of select female colleagues, and nostalgic sports fans.

We also differed on important subjects, like war and economics and modern literature and Jennifer Aniston (for the record, I'm in favor of two, against one, and conflicted on another).

Anyway, back in 1990 when the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers met in the regular season Shin and I made a bet: if the Niners won I would write a poem in their honor; if the Giants won, he would do the same*. We repeated the bet for the NFC Championship game and later playoff games.

* Did I mention we were literary dilettantes?

The Niners won a classic game, of course, and I wrote a sports masterpiece that sadly, like most of Sophocles’ plays, is lost*. Shin repaid in January, and we went back and forth a few times over the years with various sports and teams.

* All the stars on those Niner teams had names that were also words, which I used to brilliant effect. Brilliant, that is, if you were a six year old who loved bad puns. There was ‘running Watters’ and ‘hit a Lott’ and ‘no white on that Rice’ and ‘Young arm’ (Steve) and "Young massive torso" (Bryant)...well, you get the point.

Over the past week, Shin, Cormie and I – with a nudge from Stod and a whisper from BAM (our Stu Sutcliffe, sans tumor) – engaged in the nerdiest trash talking of the year. Here, I give you, the NFC Poetry Slam:

Pre Game Trash Talk

Shin:

The roars were audible from Brisbane to Nyack

When Alex said simply, "Boys, get on my back"

Smith ran round Osi and right over J. Tuck

Grabbed his crotch and said "Eat my PeePee, JPP, you miserable f*ck"

He's vanished his demons, fulfilled all his whims

Hell, he's almost Montana, much better than Simms.

Corm:

There once was a guy from New York

Who got mad when we called Simms a dork

He talked lots of smack

But took much of it back

Through a rhyme scheme that almost did work.

Keatang (last line should be read like you're Seinfeld's mother):

He was picked number one and the orchestras sung,

But for a half dozen years he played like horse dung,

A sweep left for a score,

To Vernon for one more,

And suddenly he's Montana and Young?

Shin:

Since the day I was born I have loved me some Giants*

Just the sound of the word is like a brand new appliance

So yes, I hate me some Dodgers

And they should have picked Rodgers

But they'll clobber New York in defiance

* ed: he refers to the San Francisco Giants

Corm (channeling Robert Burns, after Eli missed practice with a stomach ailment):

Wee, sleekit, cowring tim'rous beastie

Eli, what gurglins in thy breastie

Thou need na start excuse so hasty

Wi burbling belly

Fear the Niners wad rin an chase thee

Wi murdering prattle.

Corm (channeling Thomas Percy, letting Alex know he’s not quite there yet):

And when yon task be fifteen yeere old

Then shall you be crowned kinge

Brisbaine’s Tana, that was once uprore

You did to quiet bring.

First strike the Giants from the realm

Dared they opprest this land

To Canton then, throughe manly feates

of football, head and hand.

BAM (poor guy’s a Browns fan, and has no dog in this fight):

Now NFL Football it ain't my best game

The Cleveland Browns they're just f*cking lame

But on a bandwagon I jump

Both Giants and Niners I trump

So either team can win, I'm the same.

Post Game Loser’s Poems

Shin:

On account of how I now know more of their names

And that yesterday was the first in forever where I watched two football games

I can say Brady's a fighter, and, it looks like, a lover

Manning's a winner, maybe even better than big brother

The Harbaughs a nice story but that one is over

Victor from UMass should be rolling in clover

The Giants are mighty and making big millions

And they should send partial share to Kyle Effing Williams.

Corm (channeling T.S. Eliot):

January is the cruelest month

Giants from back east, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Niner brains with spring rain

Fall kept us warm, a season's

Generous dose of forgetful snow, feeding

a fan's life with dried tubers

Eli surprised us, coming over the middle

To Cruz balls dropped like rain, tween our colonnade

And ran to sunlight, into the Superbowl

We drank beer, and talked it over

Bin kar keine Niner, stamm aus New York echt Giant 20

We cannot say or guess, for no one knows

A heap of broken images, where Williams stands

And the dead season gives no shelter, no relief, 17

From this dry stone no water,

Only Eli, whose shadow rose to meet us

Ending our year in a handful of dust