America doesn’t play cricket

America doesn’t play cricket:
She has always refused to learn
Anything about the rules of fair play.

Someone living in a cave,
Looking oddly like W. G. Grace
Gave her a crash course in the game.

He bowled some bodyliners
Neatly demolishing the wicket
On an artificial pitch in New York.

He went on to score a near hat-trick that day.
For her breaches of Rule One of the game of life –
‘Do As You Would Be Done By’ – America was stumped.

Ignoring what lay behind this fast bowler’s fiery tactics
America then attacked another team altogether
Engaged in playing a quite different game.

“No one ever takes a thwack at me,” she snarled,
“God loves me much more than anyone else.
Because I’m the best at everything.”

She sent all the available umpires packing
Then bowled out over a million people –
Each one for a duck. Dead ducks.

Men, women, children and those as yet unborn
Would never be able to play any games
Of any kind with anyone ever again.

Unfazed, she chucks vicious bouncers at anyone in her way
From the 700 playing fields she has in 63 countries
Though she herself is unable to score.

America fondly hopes to find new people to challenge
But the clever teams are now refusing to play
Because she’s such a bad loser.

Since she invariably breaks the rules
Of any contest she enters, as if it’s her right,
Fate ensures she’s losing the toss whatever the game.

On 9/11 she lost the Weapons Game
Clean-bowled by box-cutters and plastic knives;
Shortly after, she was run out by the Money Game.

Instead of losing gracefully she tortures people to death
Until they give in and confess they dislike America –
Which counts as foul play in her book.

Despite her never learning the rules of cricket
She finds it galling as her innings is drawing to a close
With leaner and hungrier teams now striding up to the crease.

She gets an all-round sledging, facing mental disintegration.
Amateur pie-throwers see off whoever she puts into bat.
Her top players are defeated by every sticky wicket.

So she’s dying to open the batting for the Apocalypse
Hoping at last she may have found an all-American game
A game that’s played by her rules, and one she can always win.

Heathcote Williams