Cartilage-Free Poetry Slam 10: Sonnets

Ahhh, the sonnet. Loved by Shakespeare, hated by undergraduates. And the next installment in the Cartilage-Free Poetry Slam. Fourteen lines, Elizabethan language, and alternating rhyming couplets. What's not to like?

Shakespeare made his sonnets all about love, and damn near incomprehensible, if beautiful. I choose to make mine about football, and damn near ridiculous. Feel free to add your own love poetry to Tottenham in the comments.

Poetry: it's totes awesome!

Spurs Sonnet #1

When I consult the calendar this day
Reflecting on the winter month to come,
In reverence, I drop to knees and pray
That Levy will enhance, thru tidy sum.
But whither strikers? Wither midfield class?
A lad to make supporters crow and sing;
A signing that, completed, wilt surpass
The heady days of Hoddle, Jones, or King?
From token clubs, we hence desire increase,
A gaudy talent must the club supply;
With whom, from Euro exile, we seek surcease,
That even clubs in Chelsea can't deny.

This Christmas-tide, let angel choirs resound,
Sing "Glory, Tottn'ham Hotspur" all around!

Spurs Sonnet #2 (Ode to Sandro)

Shall I compare thee to a giant wall?
That glorious hair, those slight protruding ears --
Defensive mid, with talents that appall
Opponents, yea, reducing them to tears.
O how I faint when I of you do write,
Evoking how the home crowd screams your name;
It is enough, in honor'd style forthright,
To make me tongue-tied, thinking of your fame!
O Sandro, thou'rt a man of many roles,
And though we know that defense is your ilk
We kindly ask - please score a few more goals
So we can get a cow for you to milk.

On this, the whole of Tottenham concurs:
We love Brazil, and Come On All You Spurs!

Spurs Sonnet #3 ("Anti-sonnet")

dedicated to Skipjack

On coal-black wings thou flyest through the world
Traversing o'er the breadth of this curse'd sphere
Into my soul, the whole of which, unfurled,
Thou then corrupteth, filling me with fear.
Thy visage, yea, though friendly on its face,
To which North London children flock and smile,
Doth mask instead a deeply darker place
That hides a feathered countenance reviled.
Thou offspring of a demon and a witch!
Thou imp! Thou devil! Arch-fiend fit to thwart!
A two-faced Bifron hiding, on the pitch,
A low, grotesque besmirching of our Sport!

From deepest pits of Hell thou hast been drawn;
I name thee Chirpy! and I bid thee gone!