Funny Olympic Poems
The Olympic Games, London 2012. One nation's sporting dream becomes a reality ...or a complete nightmare. Peculiar Poetry has a long and venerable tradition of publishing funny poems about sport. Paul Curtis is sports mad, with a predictably English predilection for writing poems about football, while Patrick Winstanley is a militant member of the League Against All Sport. The site's permanent collection of funny sport poems embraces these diverse views, offering an eclectic mix of poems about horse racing (the sport of kings), football (the sport of hooligans) and golf (hardly a sport at all). Yes, there are some very funny sport poems, but not a lot that has anything to do with the Olympics
Our Own Olympic Dream
With such a fine sporting poetry pedigree, it's unsurprising that we decided to cynically exploit all the Olympic hype and produce our own collection of funny Olympic poems. Entering into the true Olympic spirit, we've sought entirely inappropriate commercial sponsors, accepted brown envelopes stuffed with cash and taken any amount of illicit drugs in order to realise our dream. The aim was to produce a collection of funny Olympic poems which reflected the mood of the nation, from fevered fans, thought warmly indifferent onlookers to those who'll run a mile (perhaps for the only time in their lives) to avoid the Olympics. The collection is still a work in progress and somewhat unbalanced, featuring only around a third of the twenty six Olympic sports (don't hold your breath for too many beach volleyball poems) and with a definite bias towards the poems from the Anti-Olympic Movement.
Warming Up
While Olympic athletes spend years preparing for the games, it shouldn't be forgotten that avid armchair sports fans also have to undertake rigorous preparation for the games - finding the perfect TV viewing position, laying in copious supplies of lager and salty snacks, training the wife to fetch and carry for him and, most importantly, developing the correct sympomatogy to blag a quick two week sickie from work. It would probably be easier to take a bit of gentle exercise and win a place in the Olympic rhythmic gymnastic squad.
Exercise Regime Week 1
You must have an exercise regime
My doctor advised me
But he said it is essential
To build it up very gradually
So for the first week
I am watching sport on TV
Exercise Regime Week 2
You must have an exercise regime
My doctor advised me
But he said it is essential
To build it up very gradually
So for the second week
I’ve begun to do a little more
I’ve started driving past
A sporting goods store
Exercise Regime Week 3
You must have an exercise regime
My doctor advised me
But he said it is essential
To build it up very gradually
But by the third week
It started to get hard
As that’s when I started trying
To put on the leotard
Let’s Split
I’ve always wanted to learn to do the splits
It’s an ambition since my earliest days
The guy at the gym said, “How flexible are you?”
I replied, “I can do any day but Tuesdays”
To Travel Hopefully
A favoured sport at Peculiar Poetry is Ryanair bashing. Paul is a master of the art, but his fellow poets are catching up fast. It's fitting that even an Olympic poetry collection doesn't escape at least one poem about the notorious budget airline.
London 2013
The Irish Olympic athletes
Arrived in London by Ryanair,
But their baggage went to Lisbon.
They competed in their underwear.
Track and Field
After the months of frenzied preparation and amid mounting excitement, it's time for the sport proper to begin. The athletic disciplines are considered the centrepiece of the Olympic games and the sprinters it's super heroes. Or are they?
Pathletics
I hate most track athletes
But sprinters really get my goat
The fastest men on earth they claim
As they strut and preen and gloat
Running very fast in a straight line
Small beer for such a big ego
And they excel for less than ten seconds
Duration unimpressive to my wife I know
On they African plains they’d fail to impress
I can say that without being rude
In the eyes of a hunting lioness
They would be little more than fast food
Dash It All
They called it the dash
Way back in the day
A short word for a short race
Dash was the right word to say
Now they call it the sprint
Like its something elite
It’s still just a short race
That’s been hijacked by the Effete
Marathon Man
I used to be a Marathon man
A Marathon man was I
Then they renamed them Snickers
I don’t know why
Putting Your Oar In
The homoerotic undertones of the Ancient Olympics are kept alive by a number of sports which require competitors with oversized muscles to squeeze into overstretched lycra. Sprinters, swimmers and cyclists all add colour to proceedings, but rowers are the real prima donnas on the Olympic scene.
The Meddlers
On the podium
Eight strapping oarsmen
With their bulging pecs
And their tiny cox.
Eight Little Oarsmen
Eight oarsmen
Rowing for their lives
Stroke, stroke, stroke
Then their were five.
At the Pool
Swimming, diving, water polo, synchronised drowning. The aquatic disciplines in the Olympics provide for all sorts of opportunities for fun and frolics, but few for funny pro-swimming poems. The simple truth is that swimming is dull for the participants and excruciatingly so for the spectators.
Sink or Swim
Breast stroke, back stroke,
Butterfly, crawl.
It's sink or swim,
Winner takes all.
Back flip, half pike,
Somersault, splat.
Which fucker let
The water out?
In Or Out Of Synch
If a synchronized swimmer
Were to drown
Would the rest of the team
Also go down?
Triumph and Disaster
When it comes to the Olympics, the discipline in which the English really excel is hubris. After the games are over, prepare yourself for excruciating press statements explaining why the millions poured into elite sport has won our athletes a handful of silver medals and a cuddly toy.
Be English
Celebrate the victory
With your peers
Drown the woes of foes
In English beer
Sing loud the songs of triumph
Whisper low of near disasters
Be magnanimous in victory
Be humble in defeat
Be proud, be loud
Be English
Life Goes On
To conclude The Olympic Poetry Collection, a poem which placed the whole Olympic frenzy in its proper context. For a true sports fan, the Olympics are a little blip which punctuate a year of devotion at the altar of all things sporting.
Summer Season
The summer started oh so well
With a Euro football banquet
Though sadly the home nations
Were unable to attend it
But the Euros inevitably led
To the curse of footie nations
The summer transfer market
And the incessant speculation
After the Euros came Wimbledon
And I cheered on the plucky brit
Then suffered our inclement climate
While being bored by the Cricket
I watched the windblown whingers
Hacking round at the British open
Then courtesy of the highlights
I sat and watched it all again
Then more newspaper talk
Of who will stay and who will go
Who is in and who is out
And more stories about Ronaldo
Two weeks away on the costas
Helped to numb the pain
Then home to more paper talk
And of course more summer rain
Even the upcoming Olympics
Fail to give me inspiration
Thinking of all that track and field
Merely deepens my depression
The only thing to break my torpor
And to rejuvenated my heart
Is to hear that shrill whistle blow
And have the football season start
Or Hell Endureth
An poetic postscript from Max, for those who don't understand sport in any shape or form, or at any time, Olympics or no Olympics.
Sport on TV
When there's a question raised of sport, I'm afraid I must retort,
What's so good about the kicking of a ball,
Between two painted sticks, it fairly makes me sick,
And the whole damn football caper does appall.
But if that gets on my wicket, I just have to think of cricket,
The rules for which remain a bloody mystery,
But they seem to need a bat, and a shrunken school boy's hat,
And a lot of English posture culled from history.
But the worst of sporting viewing, is not Wimbledon or doing,
But four solid hours of bloody TV golf,
I would rather watch Top Gear, Nationwide or Farming Year,
Or just learn to dance a kangaroo like Rolf.
Thankfully, it's another four years before we have to go through whole painful experience once again!
