Almanac Poetry: 2020 AFL Grand Final Haiku Kukai – smoke and lasers

Well into the future, the year 2020 will need no introduction. Like every legendary age that preceded it, 2020 will go down as a larger than life, deeply transformative time that puts every other calendar year with a dark story to tell in the shade – especially for those who lived through it. Covid-19 shocked, rearranged and reinvented the world. Things we took for granted became nuggets of irrational desire – like going to the movies, having dinner out, visiting our mums and dads, and toilet paper!

 

More than any city in the country, Melbourne bore the brunt of the metamorphic shock of the global pandemic. Two lockdowns, one lasting 4 months, are testament to that. Collateral damage of the Covid-19 pandemic included the 2020 AFL season. Border closures and quarantine regulations posed the biggest threat to the completion of a VFL/AFL season since WW2. For the first time in history, football was played in front of no crowds, with not a single game (including the Grand Final!) played in Melbourne after Round 5. Bubbles, hubs, quarantine breaches and the permutations of rolling fixtures and shortened quarters dominated the back pages as we sat on the edge of our couches, crossing our fingers for a meaningful, if not satisfactory, resolution to a season no one had anticipated.

 

With the grand final wrenched away from Melbourne, and with much of the country forced to watch it from their living rooms, it was always going to be a different day. For everyone, including haiku poets entering the 9th running of the Grand Final Haiku Kukai, it was a time of curious anticipation. In true form, they rose to the challenge.

 

 

In the days leading up to the game, haiku poets reflected on the poignancy of the event:

 

as two thirty nears
ghost siren over Punt Rd
my bones feel the roar

 

Amanda Collins

 

 

grand final parade
pigeons strut through
the mall

 

Myron Lysenko

 

 

Grand Final—
yellow and black daisies
on my brother’s grave

 

Mary Stone

 

 

The afternoon of
the first night grand final –
bugger all to do

 

Clem Byard

 

 

grand final day
not
at mum’s

 

Glenn Harper

 

 

grand final day
the MCG fills
with seagulls

 

Louise Hopewell

 

 

MCG
a lone seagull
looks for a chip

 

Jeanie Axton

 

 

Here near St Kilda
I don’t hear any neighbours
barracking at all

 

Hamish Danks Brown

 

 

Some of our haiku poets follow the footy as much, if not more, than the average supporter, and engaged in some of the pre-game banter of the build-up with their uniquely fanatical and humorous offerings:

 

 

Eastern Standard Time
– Pop go the Pies
in Gabba Bubble

 

Bill Wootton

 

 

Something in the air
– Tom Hawkins
denies it

 

Bill Wootton

 

 

Late change
AFL rethinks presenting premiers
with Cartier watches

 

Michael Potter

 

 

smoke and lasers
the singer’s
single hit

 

Glenn Harper

 

 

But it’s in the clinches where all haiku poets worth their salt belong, and from the first bounce to the last, they put their heads over the ball and produced the most prolific performance in the 9-year history of this event to date. This year’s kukai generated 450 haiku in total including 330 during the game itself – approximately 3-4 per minute. A blistering pace. The highlights reel is below.

 

 

As usual, a huge thanks goes out to the poets all over the country and beyond. It was another cracking kukai. ‘Til next year at the ‘G (hopefully).

 

 

– Rob Scott (aka Haiku Bob)

 

 

playing her role
from the toss of the coin
lady luck

 

Simon Hanson

 

 

Geelong kicks one way
Ablett’s shoulder
goes the other

 

Rob Scott

 

 

each man
has four shadows-
first quarter

 

Jade Pisani

 

 

first goal
all the cat’s eyes
look away

 

Ron C. Moss

 

 

lip reading…
smooth flow
of epithets

 

Madhuri Pillai

 

 

balmy in Queensland
you’d think the pitch invaders
would discard their clothes

 

Kim Jeffs

 

 

quarter time –
more sausage rolls
than the scoreboard

 

Glenn Harper

 

 

it’s an even game
the lagging Facebook refresh
and my vodka brain

 

Derek Begg

 

 

Second quarter –
Cats give the goal posts
a good spray

 

Jen Worthington

 

 

who scored that goal?
I find the replay in a haiku

 

Myron Lysenko

 

 

my lover
and the football
blue sky danger

 

Alan Summers

 

 

half time . . .
all the haiku poets
kicking goals

 

Ron C. Moss

 

 

Game to be won
Danger and Dusty
move forward

 

Ian Gostelow

 

 

go kukai poets
final half of footy
to find the goals

 

Ross Coward

 

 

momentum change –
she says
its over

 

Glenn Harper

 

 

sexting
all of a sudden
it’s close

 

Bee Jay

 

 

one-man supporter
painted in the colours
of the losing team

 

Adjei Agyei-Baah

 

 

Spellcheck hates Riewoldt
Like, seriously hates him
Wonder if he knows?

 

Ivana Dash

 

 

on the sidelines
Annastacia Palaszczuk
stifles a yawn

 

Kim Jeffs

 

 

A neighbour cheering
or is it because Uber
Eats has just arrived?

 

Hamish Danks Brown

 

 

spring moon –
the bald head of Ablett
still centre stage

 

Rob Scott

 

 

tv free house
celebrating neighbours are
my final siren

 

Lucy Annicka

 

 

The Tigers (Covid) Almanac 2020 will be published in the coming weeks. It will have all the usual features – a game by game account of the Tigers season – and will also include some of the best Almanac writing from the Covid winter.  Pre-order right now HERE

 

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

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