Beckham's Torn Achilles Moves British Poet Laureate To Write Dreadful Verse

"[T]his poem is written," Carol Ann Duffy announces, "to draw a parallel with Achilles, who gave his name to Beckham's injury." Uh-oh.

She wrote the poem for The Daily Mirror, which is sort of like The Sun but with poetry instead of boobs. Here it is, in full:

Achilles (for David Beckham)

Myth's river- where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boyflowed [sic? oh lord I hope so] on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesised, they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs... but when Odysseus came,

with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd's roar, and it was sport, not war,

his charmed foot on the ball...

but then his heel, his heel, his heel...

Suck on that, Bart Giamatti.

I'll remind you that Duffy isn't just a poet laureate. She's poet laureate of a country that gave us John Donne, William Blake, Lord Byron (who knew plenty about boyflow, incidentally), and Exile on Main Street. Those were the days of sweetmeats, weren't they?

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy writes for injured David Beckham [Mirror]

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