Column: Haiku Herman

      Puddles waiting
      for warmth so to evaporate
      water becomes cloud

That’s the end of the Copenhagen Climate Treaty, or maybe he is referring to being named the new EU President. Herman started out looking rather like a puddle but he received increasingly warm support from EU government leaders and heads of state and ended up on cloud nine.

Herman is bringing haiku everywhere. He has the knack for saying what needs to be said in just 17 syllables. This earned him the nicknames ‘Zen Prime Minister’ and ‘Haiku Herman’.

I find this quite charming, a new EU President who tries his hand at poetry. It’s a small start. He even puts a ‘Poem of the Month’ on his website. This isn’t haiku but something much more substantial. It shows Herman is foremost an admirer of poetry.

It is not always to the benefit of poetry when a celebrity takes an interest in writing poems. Someone who springs to mind is the current coach of Bayern Munich, Louis van Gaal, whose claim to poetic fame stems from this utterance: ‘Am I the one that is so clever, or are you just quite thick?’

However, you ought to judge for yourself. When he was appointed by Ajax, he made another contribution to poetry:

      I catch up with my feelings really ha ha
      And become the technical man in the Arena

(Mr van Gaal was appointed Technical Director of Ajax)

Louis is desperate to make it rhyme. It is a common affliction of poets who are at the beginning of their career. I’m glad we’ve been saved from having to read his poem celebrating his employment with Bayern. It doesn’t bear thinking about it.

      There I go to Bayern München
      Where I may meet Gisela Bündchen

In general, footballers do not make great poets, and the entire body of work created by Ruud Gullit can be consolidated in ‘sexy football’.

Actually one of my favourite dreams is: being introduced as the new coach of Barcelona at a press conference. The chairman announces: ‘We are taking a new direction and have appointed a poet.’ It has an immediate effect, the bench is smoking again.

If I was the coach I would implement a very tough regime, for starters, no playing of cards in the players bus. After having played a handball during the qualifying game of France versus Ireland, Thierry Henry impressively recites the poem ‘The Hand of God’.

Before a game I instruct the players: ‘Don’t forget to alliterate when addressing the referee.’  So, for example, after it becomes clear that they have played a handball they’re compelled to say something like: ‘I’m repentant ref.’

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