Pulpo Paul: In Which A Psychic Cephalopod Is Saluted

Cartoon by Daslav Goicovic. Click here and check him out!

O Pulpo Paul, your record now has reached
Perfection for this World Cup! Truly you,
Are all that is sagacious; you have breached
The psychic wall and squidgeled right on through,
Predicting not just that your German squad
Would wind up in third place, but, too, that Spain
Would take the tournament. Drop your facade,
Now, and reveal your nature as the main
High priest of the Great Old Ones 'neath the waves!
Somehow those mussels told you who would score
And who would make the greatest, wildest saves,
E'en ere you read their entrails. Oh, what more
Might you now offer? Can you talk to Mac?
We'd love to hear from him again. Call back!

In Which I Make A Silly Historical Analogy

Three hundred and ten years ago, one man,

Unlovely, sickly, challenged, royal, died.

And many thought that they had just the plan,

And ere long ev'ry nation chose a side.

'Twas France and Spain against the freer world,

And thirteen years of bloody war ensued,

That ended in a new world order. Hurled

To prominence were many who embued

Such qualities as we admire today

In football. Now, come Sunday, we shall see

Two old belligerents clash in a way

More peaceful, to our pure and utter glee,

As heirs of the Stadtholder and the Kings

Face off upon the pitch. What joy this brings!

In Which I Am Doubly Powerless

South Africa's a strange place for to seek
Some comforting distraction from my cares,
But coasting toward the end of this crazed week,
That's where my thoughts have rested, and my stares
Have fixed upon. Today, Toronto boasts
A protest crowd of thousands, which contains
My Laroquod among the marching hosts.
He's safe, I know, but craziness there reigns.
So football's been my balm, despite our loss
To Ghana, whose Blackstars I like to cheer
When they're not playing us, at least. The gloss
Of this great tournament's not faded, clear?
But now I cannot help but spend the day
A-willing all the bad march stuff away.

In Which I Speculate On Causality

A victory for our Team U.S.A.

Another one for England; wait, there's more:

The grand release of George Hrab's Trebuchet,

The waking of the Cloverleaf beast, or

Paul Laroquod's titanic struggles with

His crummy RSS feed reader and

Some buggy LamdaMOO verbs, or a fifth

And stranger cause: those vuvuzelas. Land

Is sensitive to their vibrations, too,

I have no doubt. Perhaps, though, it was all

Of these, mayhap some odder causes (true:

These all are pretty weird already; call

Me crazy if you wish) did cause to shake

The ground beneath the shield: CanadaQuake.

In Which Group C Sure Do Love To Draw

Nine games so far have ended in a draw
In this World Cup 2010. The most
Have been in one group. Has there been a flaw
Exposed in planning? No: too soon to roast
The FIFA body, though the referees
Are cruising for a scolding. Ever thus
Goes sport. 'Tis why I usually say "Please,
Just count me out" when someone makes a fuss
About a chance to watch it. This is my
One great exception. Though so far it's not
Too pulse-pounding -- Oh look, another tie!
Group C is not the only one we've got.
Tomorrow, Ghana and the Socceroos
Or other matches may yet chase my blues.

In Which I Ponder Strange Group Behavior And Posit A Possible Cause

We know that parasites can make us dumb:

For instance, snails who host this one flat worm

(Leucochloridium paradoxum)

Grow fat antennae, colorful, that squirm

Just like a caterpillar, so a bird

Will snap it up and thus wind up a host

To yet another cycle in the life

Of this odd creature. Humans, too, can boast

Of something just as strange. We cease our strife

With one another at odd intervals

To chase a black and white ball round a field

Or watch as others do it. How this pulls

Us from our other pleasures just might yield

A scientific paper, someday, fore

Some xenoanthropologists. Oh, score!

SONNET DARE: In Which I Try To Make Sentences Out Of Hashflags And Fail

The FIFA World Cup has come 'round again,
A season when e'en I do care somewhat
For sports. It's mostly just a nerd thing. When
The Twitter lords decided they would strut
Their geekery, creating #flashtags, who,
Then, was surprised? Just type a country's name
(Abbreviated, like on scoreboards): you
Then generate that country's flag. Each game
We tweet about will have some color. More:
An apopheniac and language dork
Like me will try to render semaphore
Of them, or to make sentences that work
With those abbreviations. Yet I fail.
Fine: shut me down. Put me in Twitter jail.

In Which I Get Excited Over A Tournament Draw

No sports fan am I, save for this one round

Of football games that make of me a nut:

The FIFA World Cup. No way I have found

Has ever kept me out of this one rut.

'Tis only ev'ry four years this occurs,

When I become a lunatic. Today

Preliminary groups were drawn, which spurs

My craziness. England v. USA?

The Germans and the Aussies? Oh my head

Already spins. Brazil and Portugal

Are in a group together, "of the dead"

And though Croatia won't be at the ball

I still feel now the ghost of my old craze.

One hundred eighty seven more short days!