Tuesday, April 10, 2012

La Guerre de la Balle Jaune Floue

A sonnet inspired by suggestions from two people, and it's easily relatable to Infinite Jest. So, three birds with one stone and that sort of thing.


Six sets to six; the tennis pros swing on
With neither willing to accept defeat.
They're so well-matched, we hoped it would go long,
Now ev'ry fan is trembling in his seat.
Shot of a tennis racket and two tennis balls o...
Photo credit: Wikipedia

Now tied at twenty sets. The pros are drenched,
The sun hangs low, some bleacher seats are bare,
But still they battle on as if entrenched.
No longer le tennis; it's now la guerre.

Now fifty-one to fifty. . . fifty-two!
Only the ref and tennis pros remain
As dawn's first warming beams of light poke through
On glist'ning sweat and faces wracked with pain.

The loser falls and cries; so too the champ.
They wonder now about what they have done
And why. Through ev'ry scrape and swing and cramp
They did not yield the fight — but what was won?

The winner gets to see his name in print.
The loser? Only yellow pocket lint.

Yes, I've got one quatrain too many for a classic, Shakespearean sonnet. But still, it keeps the form.

@CollinsMandy (once again) suggested a poem about lint, and my Kansan friend Eric Nelson, himself a tennis menace, suggested yellow tennis ball fuzz.
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