Bloated, middle-aged Icarus
When will you ever learn?
The game is beyond you now
Give someone else a turn.
Batting is a playful whim
But running between wickets ?
Damn turning for a third run
Bring in the bloody pickets!
Your mind is still seventeen
Though the body is forty-three
Bowling pace was your forte
Now it’s a distant memory.
Desperately you turn to spin
Faced with a synthetic pitch
Dispatched over the pavilion
A shovel to dig a ditch?
Sixteen years between drinks
An alcoholic has more clarity
You lumbering, flannelled fool
Show yourself some charity.
“You can do it” they whisper
Hubris and Nemesis love your sort
To you it’s a lifelong passion
For them it’s just sport.
Gigs and MOC are on your side
They too play in the Vets team
Middle-aged Icarus’s of the Hill
Who’ve kept their self-esteem.
A wounded Magpie in the dirt
You won’t give up the fight
Like Icarus flapping in vain
The hope for one more flight.
About Phillip Dimitriadis
Carer/Teacher/Writer. Author of Fandemic: Travels in Footy Mythology. World view influenced by Johnny Cash, Krishnamurti, Larry David, Toni Morrison and Billy Picken.
Mr Bogan – you just have to get your mind around the fact that it’s the same game – just played in slow motion.
Did the ball sail over the fence in slow motion?
Hope you get that one last flight LB
Lovely stuff
Dips, the ball was definitely bowled in slow motion and disappeared quickly. I have enjoyed getting back into it but it frustrates me that the muscles (figuratively speaking) can’t do what the brain asks them to.
T Bone, I won’t give up but in the back of my mind Richie Benaud’s voice keeps saying: “Very, very stupid indeed!”
Phil, Phil, Phil,
With memories of that Almanac XI game still painful, I know how you feel.
Just remember, when reflex is dulled, suppleness has fled, and the eye is dulled, rat cunning, gamesmanship and sheer bloody mindedness must suffice.
A wounded magpie in the dirt – Phil, I can picture you (I mean, the magpie) so clearly. Great metaphor
Wounded magpie.. Sounds like tommy haley in the 75 preliminary final at half time..Nothin more tigerish than a wounded bloody tiger…
Hafey, not Haley..
JB, I thought I still had some talent after the Almanac match. Delusions of adequacy obviously! Thanks Cookie, some metaphors work on occasion.
Actually Paubai, Haley might not be so inappropriate. A music journo, documenting Bill Haley’s (The Comets) ill-fate career and lack of sexual machismo, compared to Elvis, wrote:
“He looked like a mailman and moved like a lummox.”
A bit like me on the cricket field at the moment!
Phil, you need to reconnect with the Pegasus of your youth.
Great stuff mate.
Thanks Damo, great to meet you at the launch last week. Could have talked to you for hours. I’m sure we’ll get another chance to wax lyrical soon. I’d like to buy a copy of your Footy Quatrains. Let me know where and how. Hope you have a great Xmas (Phil)
Likewise Phil. Enjoyed the chat immensely. Hopefully the book is not too far away.
Just caught up with this, Phil. Brilliant. And I feel honoured to have rated a mention.
No delusions of adequacy today mate – your 3-for was a deserved reward for some great bowling.
Carn the Hillers!