Half Time - No Score!

A bit of cold war tongue in cheek.

A scanner in Greenland relaying the score,

The man in the grey flannel suit is directing

The traffic, and checking

His manual on quaint International Law,

The section that covers correction of lovers

And touches on quaint International War.

 

In London and Moscow the people are waiting,

In Peking and Washington, calculating

The minutes of meetings and protest marches

The cost of concealing those sabotages

Of missiles now speeding toward the umbrellas

As someone is running a four minute mile,

To check at his own private atom bomb shelter

In hopes that the referees whistles and rules

Are succeeding in keeping them off for a while.

 

A bottle of Burgundy must be enjoyed at half time

So the light turns to red with no score,

But China is playing the game with the rules

Of Mah Jongg, and collecting the dragons and flowers,

As short April showers are falling in Liverpool,

Sydney is bounced off the satellite, two-up school

Going on calmly in Melbourne as usual,

Transistors blaring Australian Rules.

But the Rest of the world can’t be bothered to listen

The scoreboard is showing to Russia one-nil...

Though the Great Britain team has surprised

With a sneaky disguise in the guise of a

Virus from Rhyl.

 

The only American Man in the Moon

Is too high on hallucinogen to be useful

For ought but to classify Moon-branded cheese;

The Vietnam delegate gets off his knees

In a mushroom he helped manufacture in Hanoi

And wonders if Paris was not a mistake,

To be too dogmatic, a Russian romantic

Is raptured to bring down Imperial Power

For the revolution of shooting recruiting

May be the solution to western aggression

While Arsenal beat the United once more

And a famous explorer climbs up to the top

Of the North-West Pole for the umpteenth time,

A pacifist asks if they ever will stop,

This conscription is giving a very hard time

On a Sunday, always he wishes for Monday,

Glued to his pew with a sickly smile,

He’s reading the first second chapter of John,

And punctuates nicely the sound of the bombs.

 

At the TAB they're waiting the final result,

The old Australian betting cult

Could not resist giving Russia the odds

In the war with China,

But Waltzing Matilda with President Somebody-Else,

They’re saying, that Britain could want

Nothing finer than peace

And a place in the Market,

As London subsides to sink

Solemnly into the wandering Thames.

While tanks from Detroit keep on rolling on rolling

In time to the rhythm of lend-lease for Israel

Playing the Arabs at middle-east games.

 

Russia is one and America three, calling England...

Just radio genuine claims, reading

Two for Great Britain and one more for China

That turned in the air to demolish Peking,

So just give me the Half Time No Score somebody,

Can you not hear that I’m speaking...

Can you not hear that I’m speaking...

Can you not hear?

 

David Lewis Paget

 

1969