adminAMAZING news. Yesterday I got an e-mail from Fifa. They say they would like me to write a poem for the World Cup 2018 which will replace the traditional opening song! Wow! Imagine that. And you can guess, right now I am over the moon, literally over all the moons in the universe, including all the other unknown billions of planets out there, as finally, a life-long dream has come true.
World Cup 2018 here I come. Yes, yes, yes, yes! And boy, you bet I am gonna make this good.
You can imagine that right now I have gone into deep meditation, even deeper than that of a hibernating tortoise, and calling upon all spirits of the greatest poets that have walked this fine earth to inspire me with the most divine lines that can reach out to the most dejected heart, and raise it to celebration.
And here is how the poem is going to start. “Messi put the kettle on, Messi put the kettle on, Messi put the kettle on, and we have a beautiful World Cup.”
Wow, that’s divine isn’t it? I can guess poets and all other artistes across all genres out there are right now salivating, thinking, how the heck did this guy get this luck? Ugeze ngaphi?
Kwaaaaaa. Got you. This is my joke of the day. But just imagine what if that was to happen, for, as they say, jokes can come true, just as dreams do sometimes.
Oh yes, I definitely know what would happen if that were to happen. For one, music would be thrown out from the opening ceremony, as this gladiator poem replaces it, now the new anthem.
And with the removal of the song do you know what it means? No more tweaking on the world stage when we are watching the World Cup with our in-laws because it’s difficult to try to find a spot on the ceiling to focus on when your eyes want to goggle at the curves.
But would musicians be happy about the theme song being chucked into a dust bin? Oh no, I can imagine the noise they would make. A poem replacing the World Cup theme song! Unheard of! Fifa has gone crazy! This is match fixing! What is a poem after all? These would be some of the protest tweets we would be bombarded with, to be retweeted and retweeted all over the place.
I think we would get graffiti too on walls saying “no to poetry at World Cup,” not to mention some wicked rap songs dicing it too. Say whaaat.
But on the side of poetry itself, what would this dumping of the World Cup theme song mean?
Of course this would be the most beautiful thing to do in the world. After all, a song is a poem with instruments, and just removing the instruments and leaving the lyrics bare like someone taking a skinny dive would be a very artistic thing to do.
We can imagine how even people who don’t write poetry would be inspired to become poets for the duration of that World Cup. I can see after every score and good move by a player somebody tweeting or posting a few lines of soccer poetry on social media.
And even at the sports bars around the world, from township to green leaf neighbourhoods, or wherever people would be grouping to watch the World Cup, we can imagine people after their favourite games going home reciting poetry and feeling good about it, for poetry is medicine.
And if it was you commissioned by Fifa to write World Cup poetry, what would you write?
Please don’t tell me you will write, “Ahe Fifa, heart of a lion. Ahe Fifa, brave in the fight . . .” or something weak like that. Kikikiki.
Away from the World Cup poem, here is another thought.
Has it ever come across your mind that the World Cup is an invention? By that, meaning it is something that was discovered by somebody way back in time, and that somebody shared the idea, and that idea spread over communities, and finally became this global phenomena that we see today filling our everyday lives.
Yes, it is an invention similar to Facebook, but unfortunately there are no Facebook World Cups, you just keep posting your status updates there, knowing you have an audience somewhere out there cheering you on, but one that you can’t physically see or have a drink with at the nearest watering hole.
And finally, any predictions for tonight’s matches?
Online Reporter