Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Well, summer days are increasingly unreliable, really.
I imagine the weather was much more dependable back then in Shakespeare’s day — before climate change and that.
So how about a red, red rose?
With the greatest of respect to Burns, roses are a bit clichéd now, aren’t they?
Change the record, Rab.
How best, then, to capture the beauty and wonderment of Enzo Le Fée?
A love poem is tried and tested, sure, but it’s easier said than done.
Your Shakespeares, your Whitmans,
your E.E. Cummingses (Cummingi?) all had it easy really.
Love and beauty were so straightforward back then, and they didn’t really have much else to do.
Whereas I barely get a minute to sit down in between work and ferrying my kids to their after-school activities.
And when I do have time, I need to succinctly explain the beauty of a diminutive Frenchman receiving a football
on the half-turn.
And I’m not being funny here, but did Shakespeare’s muse ever make Luke Ayling look like a bit of a twat?
With this being Line 29, it’s safe to assume the poem won’t rhyme (other than that one).
So that’s something.
We can breathe easier knowing I don’t have to couple “Breton” with “Sweat on”.
But if it doesn’t rhyme, how will people know it’s a poem rather than just a semi-coherent brain fart?
Through the use of randomly-placed line breaks and questionable grammar, of course.
Now, they say never to fall in love with a loan player but you had from me “Bonjour”.
Sunlun’ fans often get painted as loving a hard tackle as much as a goal.
But do you know what we love even more than both?
A grafting little fucker who covers every blade of grass while doing things with a football that most of us
can only dream of.
I’d hoped this would be a piece of my writing that my eight year-old-son could finally read as he adores you too.
But I used the term “grafting little fucker” just there and that’s not a conversation I’m ready to have with his teachers at present.
If there’s a single person on this planet who watches clips of you playing football more than me
It’s my son.
The ability to leave both children and grown-ups swooning is what sets you apart from everybody else’s problematic faves.
My son and I both want to be you — that places you alongside Indiana Jones, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Raphael from the Turtles.
Or was it Donatello?
Either way, if the great poets were around today
they would undoubtedly be penning sonnets
about the beauty of your game.
How you break the lines,
how you see passes nobody else can,
your hair, your press.
“Va Va Voom” would actually lend itself quite nicely to iambic pentameter.
Instead, you’re stuck with me
and whatever this is.
How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
My heart doesn’t belong to me
(or my wife, sorry Laura).
It’s Enzo Le Fée’s.
