The Game (An ode to the 108-year football rivalry between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Michigan Wolverines)

The Game                  May 10, 2006 (Revised October 8, 2013)*

Forget Thanksgiving and your Pilgrim's Pride,
And the Tryptophan hangover from the turkey's curse,
And those shady festivities consumed by Avarice,
With paper lions and rhinestone cowboys.
Disregard the commercialized dog shows and their glitzes,
And those floating Macy's ballooned parades' blitzes:
'Tis time for The Game and nothing more,

So let us make haste, not waste a second,
And fill les sièges du stade de l'université! 

The rabid congregate for the annual battle
In the historic traditions comprised of
Anglo-Franco entanglements and treaties
Amid the Hundred Years War:
The claimant of Jean D'Arc by the English flames.
'Tis five score and eight years that have elapsed
Since The Fates first imploded and souls were divided.
'Tis time for The Game and nothing more:
We must never allow for The Game to perish!

Let the rabid who seethe fiery embers
Amid their collective tensions teethe;
They shan't bundle for the freeze,
 'Tis too hot in these hellish cauldrons:
For the "Tree Town" huggers valiant
 And the sailors of the horseshoe blue
Hath sold their souls in defiance
Of Reason and the proper Decorum,
To wage a war of attrition characterized
By four quarters, with each clock set to fifteen.
God could never part the lively seas
Married of enamored maize to her lover blue,
Nor the Columbian pallet whose delicate strokes
Color her canvas first scarlet, then with gray.
As the Seventh Day Warriors clash in joust

Intent upon outflanking the loathed louses,
The rabid gnash and grind their teeth
To their brutish souls' rigor'd delights:

Smashing their helmets like wild rams
And blocking rockets with their pads
Doth the Seventh Day Warriors tarry forth

As they joust man-to-man with their foes.

The levee at the line breaks its ranks,
 And a flood soon ensues from the Beneficiary's tanks,
As The Game embarks upon its denouement;

Lo'! How I shall loathe its grande finale!
Human bulldozers they be who fight
For the championship that awaits,

'Tis the rabid and their beloveds' rugged tastes,

Serving desserts amid the 100,000 who salivate.

But Jack Frost beckons as Winter cometh:
Must the end of The Game be so near!
The passions must approach their climax soon,
And tho' the air is cold with a chill'd nip,
We breathe Faustian flames per Goethe!
Let us cheer for the gridiron heroes,
Most of whom now reside in the triage:
For our boys must win The Game,
Or know the reason why they failed,
Lest they face the wrath of the rabid pro anno.
Win this game, my heroes, my brothers in arms!
Claim the championship of the West!
For to win, the champions shall be lavished with gold
And twenty-two laurel wreathes from Hermes of old,
And singing Auld Lang Syne per Robert Burns 
Whilst sailing His skies Pasadena bound
To New Marathon and a date with Destiny!