Blackshirt Propaganda from ManMachine
"March to the Trenches" plays loudly from the
sidelines, we are just boys pretending; yet striving.
Boys trying to prove what lies beneath the skin.
Summoning all our skills and cunning, however
barely sufficient they may have been.
It's just a game, but a game like no other game,
no matter how many times we played, each game
was the game of all games. Dire and yet foolish all
wrapped up in one. A win was something to brag
about...Defeat was a painful wound - lingering and
disappointing until the next sandlot showdown.
Almost perpetual motion...not at all lanky but still
quite mobile. A mass of awkward flesh and bones.
Limbs pumping furiously...with capable but still
hopeful arms. In full stride past every defender.
I am gone.
There, over my shoulder, from the gleaming
horizon, I spot what seems to be the perfect spiral
of certain victory - cutting swiftly through the air...
now arching down - towards my awaiting grasp.
With a great leap I forge ungracefully into the
open...with out stretched arms and proven hands...
time stands still for just one sudden singular moment-
Then come the mighty cheers of wishful success
and more still, the intense screams of my possible
failure - all vividly echo from the field of play.
My eyes focus, never waning...I grasp and clutch
that brown leathery ball, the very object of my
desire, into my hands and chest as I plunge down
to the hard, cold cemetery ground.
Rolling over and over, tumbling to a stop with ball in hand,
I've made it to make-shift end zone, the promised land for this boyhood dream....
For a brief, uncertain, and ultimately meaningless
moment I had found my purpose-
my achievement-
my glory.
As I walked back to my childhood home, dirty
and scarred from the ground, blood stained from my elbows and knees...
The violins, the mighty horns, and bass drums in my head, bellowed out
the inspiring rhythm, fast tempo notes and rousing sounds of another "Sunday With Soul"
I was happy in being right there - in that instant,
perhaps odd world. Relishing in the feeling of
accomplishment, and yet knowing that it really
didn't mean anything to anyone...except me.
On the make-shift field, I was equal to my peers, sometimes even revered for my unasumming yet absolute ability to catch a ball. I was actually a deep ball threat...imagine that! On the field I could not hear the yelling and the constant arguing from where I dwelled, I could not see the anger or sorrow that plagued my almost every day.
No, on the field, everything disapeared, except the ball and the patches of dirt and grass upon which I ran and ran, and played with every last fiber of my being, until I couldn't play anymore. In the cold, the rain and snow...
I played as if it were the only thing that ever mattered, the only reason I was there. Those sandlot fields gave more than just flight to boyhood dreams- The future lessons of life, the sometimes marked failures and ultimately- the fleeting, but special memories to keep and hold sacred, to take deliberately to the grave.
I love the game, the legends, the history. I revel in its remarkable outcomes, stunning upsets and hard-fought victories. Football is defining. Football is tough, but pure.
11 against 11 more, yet it is one on one - where the player meets his opponent - the ensuing battle to be waged within the confines of 5000 square yards of unforgiving turf.
Football is a game infused with passion, skill, frustration and sometimes luck. A contest of courage, fortitude, fear and violence. Football is truly an American cornerstone of life.
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