- Recycled Tactics: : Humour Poem by Alessandra Liverani

Hannibal's elephants had flapping ears and tusks with sharpened points
Which he set upon the enemy to disembowel and break their joints
A frightening, fearsome sight which had strong, brave men in a cower
But along came General Scipio who found a way to break their power

Let them through, let them through he boldly told his troops
Then from the side with our spears upon them we will swoop
It worked a charm, the combat won for General Scipio
A bloody battle fought in history many centuries ago

A few decades back fought a warrior who went by name of Artie Beetson
In rugby league his rampaging style was considered highly fearsome
He pushed and shoved and spun and hacked his way through the defence
With skill, dexterity and agility which belied his size, immense

But even the fiercest warrior has no weapon to conquer time
So after several years, he still played the game but at a different paradigm
He turned out for a local club he owned, and his skills were still all there
Even though his belly was twice the size and had only half his hair

He'd draw the defence, then effortlessly offload the ball to a flying team mate
Tries were being scored left and right at a very rapid rate
At half time, the coach, Joey Chambers pulled in tight his team
Let him through, let him through, he said, with in his eye a gleam

Artie grabbed the ball, and began to run, he was a legend right enough
But as he ran and ran and ran he ran right out of puff
His legs began to wobble, his head began to spin
Poor Artie hit the deck and that was the end of him.

(Sydney, Australia - 2010)