Football Blood

On the day that you were born your mother gave you up

For a bag of oranges and pills in paper cups

You became a carpenter’s apprentice and a rake

With a taste for sawdust and a thirst you could not slake

But inside you moved in threes

Leaving phantom laddies on their knees

Football blood!

Up the hill those peasant girls would moan their native tongues

They were wiser than the master with the sawed-off thumb

He just coughed and criticized your lazy plane technique

How could he have known someone so young was so replete?

Tumbling down the lush hillside

Countless peasant girls left warm inside

With football blood!

Now and then, you lean too much or your eyes go astray

In those grinding moments, you might think about the lathe

And whether that was your true calling, even though you know

That, no matter what you do, the pitch is still below.

Sign your red-ink autograph

It’s the only hue of gold that lasts –

Football blood!