Friday 3 March 2017

A Poem About Wargaming .

This poem by Elvis McGonagal  has been borrowed from the ' Man of Tin Blog '  https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/


Soldiering On

He fights them on the beaches
He fights them on the seas
He fights them on the carpet
(Despite his creaky knees)
He fights them in his attic (and why not?)
He fights them in his head
He fights the Battle of Thermopylae
In his garden shed
With his barmy army of tiny tin men
Painted precise Prussian blue
He is the very model of a modern major general
Who need never meet his Waterloo
Whistling Colonel Bogey
As he manoeuvres his platoons
He knows exactly the number of buttons
On a Hungarian Hussar’s pantaloons
Like Louis XIV in a toy-shop
Consumed by insatiable decadence
“I’d like that Philistines’ ox-drawn chariot please
And ten more Carthaginian elephants”
Hair thinning, waistline spreading
Is this an obsession he should indulge?
Surely the only battle for a middle-aged man
Is the battle of the bulge?
Some say he’s a Little Napoleon
A pocket Agamemnon of Mycenae
An itsy-witsy, teeny-weeny
Bellowing, diddly-squat Mussolini
But fear not do not beware the Geek
For he’s no gun-toting, gung-ho hawk
He’s harmless, he faints at the sight of blood
His warmomgering games are all talk
He’s just a peaceful chap in his bedroom
He’s not Darius the Great of Ancient Thrace
Indeed, if Tony Blair had only stayed at home in Number Ten with a Rowney Sable paintbrush quietly colouring in a dinky wee moustache and the horsehair plumes on his 22mm Bavarian fusiliers then
The world might be a safer place

6 comments:

  1. A wargaming delight - thanks.

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  2. Any relation to old Scottish Poet... William McGonagal? Cheers. KEV.

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  3. All too true, Thanks for the pleasant interlude.

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    Replies
    1. The Blair reference dates it a bit but a lot of truth in it , Tony

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