CROQUET POETRY

A Crush Shot
A Nonstandard Leave
Expedition in Play
International Team at the MacRobertson Shield
It's Not Easy Being White
Mele to Association Croquet
The Croquet Widower
The Gentle Game
The Resort at the Mountain

Dear striker, put your balls in place
And play your stroke with speed and grace.
Anticipate which ball to play
At start of turn; Don't cause delay.

If taking bisque, then indicate
With all dispatch; Please do not wait.
It really don't solve no one's troubles,
Prolonged discussion during doubles.

If wiring test you wish to try,
Then do so with unaided eye.
Don't ask the ref., he'll give short shrift,
Save start of turn when claiming lift.

When games are limited in time,
Remember, please, this little rhyme.
So all our chances be the same,
Play up, play up, and play the game.

The Gentle Game
by Reginald Arkell

Croquet is all very well, in its way,
If you hate all the people you happen to play.
But don't be discouraged - though starting as friends,
You'll hate them like poison before the game ends.

This quarrel, this squabble, this shambles, in fact
With envy and hatred and mallets is packed:
A series of bickers and bruises, and bangs
The venom of vicars will drop from their fangs.

There's something about it that poisons the spleen;
It makes you dogmatic, malicious and mean;
It plumbs, to the depths, every possible vice;
It's callous, it's cruel - it's ever so nice.

A Crush Shot
by David Appleton and Rod Williams
in The Lighter Side of Serious Croquet

Dolly Rush, alas is dead:
A mallet struck her on the head.
She acted as a referee
When all the others were at tea.
They should have told her not to view
So carefully the follow through.

A Nonstandard Leave
by David Appleton and Rod Williams
in The Lighter Side of Serious Croquet

Dead from a bite on his derriere,
lan was savaged by a pit-bull terrier;
Dogged by misfortune, his turn is over;
Stuck for ever in the jaws of Rover.

It's Not Easy Being White
by Denise Reibman (recited over her Four-Ball Break Brownies)

Croquet is not your childhood game of skinny little wickets,
It takes finesse and strategy to go ahead and stick it,
Through the hoop and hit again, and then hopefully roquet,
Another very distant ball — might not be my forte!

My aim is something to lament, you'd think my mallet was all bent.
I'm pretty good except I lack — direction, skill, and talent!

I stalk the ball, I start my swing, I guess my aim is true,
I think it's good, but, geez Louise! I forget to follow through.

My ball goes flying out of bounds; Leo's eyes go big and round.
Paul's in pain, and his head goes down; And, Kerry muffles a groaning sound.
All three recover somewhat quickly,
They smile at me, but it's somewhat sickly.

I try again, and make a hoop,
Things look good, I give a whoop!
Is there really hope for me?
The odds aren't great, quite honestly.

But as long as I can keep by bisques
And perfect my shots both slow and brisk
The possibility of winning — may actually exist!

Mele to Association Croquet
by Mickey Norvell (to the tune of You Made Me Love You)

You made me love it.
I didn't wanna play it. I didn't think I could play it.

You made me want to.
I guess you always knew it. That most of the time I blew it.

It makes me happy sometimes. It makes me glad.
But there are times Leo, it makes me so damn mad!

It makes me cuss it.
I didn't want to tell you. Hell, I didn't want to tell you.

I want some bisques, that's true.
Yes I do. I need 'em too. You know I do.

Give me, give me, what I cry for.
You know you can give me the kind of bisques I'd die for.

You know you made me love it.

The Croquet Widower
by Rod Mackay

[Sue Mackay wrote, "I thought you might like a poem my husband wrote for his railway signallers' forum during a quiet night shift."]

She left me all day looking after the dog
but being on nights, I slept like a log.
Had to mop up the wet patch on rising at one -
The dog is quite lucky I don't have a gun!

I'm a martyr to croquet, the game played by kings;
well, by Prescott at least, it's near the same thing.
A civilised sport, where the winner buys tea
and each player must act as his own referee.

Outsiders and journalists both tend to scoff
about vicars and Chequers and blazer-clad toffs,
and cads and young ladies at skullduggery
after hitting their balls in the far shrubbery.

It's really not like that, it's quite a good game,
not tainted by boot money, betting or fame,
but there's one thing stops it from being sublime -
it's the fact that it takes such a bloody long time!

You each have two balls to get through six hoops,
going one way to start, then back round in a loop,
then each of them must hit a stout wooden peg
which is set in the middle, half as thick as your leg.

You play it in breaks, bit like snooker on grass,
till you make a mistake, then the innings will pass
to your oppo, then you must go back and sit "out"
and try not to nod off, in case there's a shout

of "ANKLES!" which means a ball bound your way
and you jump, or to Casualty hobble away,
as the balls are rock hard and roll like the wind
and could easily fracture an incautious shin.

You play with a mallet, a work of real craft;
lignum vitae the head, and a fine carbon shaft,
but the knack is in tactical thinking, and I
can't think like a winner, however I try.

We once played a doubles that lasted six hours -
got my eye in by then and the victory was ours -
but Lord we were stiff, and as cold as the grave.
If we played tiddlywinks, just think what we'd save!

The Missus has just passed her Grade 1 Coach course
with me stuck at home with the doggy, of course,
for three dismal days, but I fear, from now on,
she'll tell why each stroke I played was all wrong!

Her handicap's 10 which is better than mine
(no, no, really, I don't, I think that's just fine)
but she wants now, to get right down to scratch,
as our lad's minus one, which is something to match.

Her plan is "more tournaments - get some real play,"
and every one lasts for - oooh - one or two days.
She says she'll be happy when I can retire,
but I'm hoping that's not till the dog has expired!

So roll-on a good croquet club, with a bar -
ours only has a small lock-up, so far -
where I'll sit at my leisure and watch as my wife
does jump-shots and cannons and triples for life,

And nod off in the sunshine, till one day no doubt,
I too, though an 18 with gout, will "peg out".