Jack of the Green Stalk

It’s truly unique to bear the name that personifies a game

like the esteemed “Jack Green” of lawn bowling fame.

Master Jack Green is not clad in a Green Master’s Jacket

but plies his keen bowling skills on grass and carpet.

Nothing bowls Jack over more than green sans moss and clover

and shorn within a blade of its life.

Jack of the “mighty lean Green stock” frequents the green scene

with an obsession to stalk “wee jack white” of the bowling green.

Wee jack is Jack’s foil and compelled to make his blood boil

confirming that this “sod couple” mix like water and oil

as one minute Jack’s bowl cuddles up to wee jack white

and the next he’ll smack wee jack purely out of spite.

Odds of betting on the ponies are against Jack the man

but his chances of winning at bowls is a more viable plan

when his biggest fan Fran is cheering from the stands.

Jack is well up in arrears so down to the rink runs Fran.

Jack’s “Lady Green” all clad in green is asked to vacate the scene

for heckling Jack’s nemesis wee jack white on the green.

Jack’s motto is “the light‘s always Green to drive”

but when he fires will the jack spring back for a deficit of five

or will his shot be bang on and totally rearrange the head

so that instead of down a hand full he’s up four or five instead?

The difference is slim between results good, mediocre or bad

so Jack may be happy one day and the next somewhat sad

or occasionally find himself on the wrong side of mad.

Like all bowlers Jack is ever exposed to the notorious bias

held at bay through his vigilance, a trait of the pious.

He delivers draw bowls as nary a one runs astray in spite

of haunting memories and lurid dreams conceived in the night.

Much sooner than expected the final end creeps into sight.

The game is over and was it Jack basking in the limelight?

Ask Jack or Fran as my pen and I skedaddled for a long-overdue

break

and can’t remember exactly where I put the pen… my mistake…

Crackerjack, whiskey-jack, jack-in-a-flap,

luck in blackjack brought Jack pot!

Jack came back to bowl the very next day…

Life Preserved in Word