WALT WHITMAN WANTS THE JOB

So, once more I hear the call of the Engerlandos!
Although I am a dead Americano poet,
Conscious but incorporeal,
Incontinent Spirit and strange unreal,
A wraith of the mountains
And spirit of the deep green forests,
I, Walt Whitman, pledge myself to England!
(So I perfected a new dynamic galvaniser
And harmonised the thunder storm lightning
So that my heart beat once more
And set out once more for Europa!)
I dispensed with my usual brigandine
And swam, instead, through the ice floed North Atlantic,
And docked at Liverpool in hours,
All covered in seaweed and spume,
And exhausted by my maritime visions
Of the ghosts of managers past.
Foe when in mid ocean daze,
What spectres had I seen?
Walter Winterbotham came first,
Balding amateur and gentleman,
A subject of FA capricious control,
Manager in name only;
I saw him drowning.
Sir Alf,
The Peoples' Knight,
Would be gentleman and amateur,
Dispenser of wingers and the letter g,
Selector of Alan Ball and dispenser of Jimmy Greaves,
Sir Alf,
Whose teams were full of runnin', shootin' and tacklin'
Until Bonnetti stopped savin' shots in Mexico,
Came next,
Drowning.
Behind him,
Rowing a lifeboat in solitary care,
I saw Don Revie,
An Admiral cap on his head
And 3 £ signs on his shirt,
Rowing full pelt for Araby,
Leaving Genial Joe Mercer,
He of yesteryear's honest values
And cheerful chucklevision,
Floundering in his wake.
And there, some timbered flotsam,
A Greenwood,
Wan and Ron,
Hardyesque name from West Ham academy,
Ron, gentleman and thinker,
Supporting Bobby Robson,
Mistake maker and tabloid victim,
Who fell three times
But rose from the depths a Messiah,
Unlike Graham Taylor,
Who rose,
A turnip on his head.
Then I saw a dirty little tramp steamer,
The El Tel,
Come to the rescue
With a crew of cockney sparrows,
Barrow boys and pundits;
The chaplain was Glenn Hoddle,
Who when the ship was wrecked,
Proclaimed, some say,
That able bodied men should leave the sinking ship first.
But there was Kev,
Walking, it seemed, on water,
3 Lions on his shirt and Jerusalem in his heart,
But only hope in his head
And water in his lungs.
But now I leave all this behind,
And enriched by these visions
Of Innocence and Experience,
I, Walt Whitman,
Dead Poet,
Take up my destiny,
The new and perpetual
Manager of Engerlando!

Poems
For Turkey
Petrescu Is Count Dracula
Sir Walter For England
The English Disease
Walt Whitman Knows The Score
Walt Whitman At The Football

F.A. Football Poets Cert.
Walter Qualifies

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