TAO OF BORG
Would it now be considered insensitive to refer to a Scandinavian
person as The Ice Man? I dunno, but back then it was fine. I
remember taking Eleanor to that small tournament in Liverpool
and because something bigger down the road had been cancelled
all these hot shots turned up, guys in their dotage but still classy.
You never lose it, was what I thought at the time. How wrong
can you be. But it was nice to think about, that when I hit sixty
I might be able to fix a Martini or turn out a sestina with just as
much elegance as I could while sitting on the grass with Eleanor
at Calderstones watching the same smooth dudes my dad watched
in the 70s. What you never lose is the potential for it. The actual
it, well, you have to keep working for that. But out there, our brains
being cauterised by the hot sun, it felt like you could do anything
just by staying cool in a literal and figurative way. I drew a little
cartoon of Borg with a rectangular head and a lively, princely slick
of hair, frying an egg on a tennis racquet, and slipped it in the case
of the tape I’d made for Eleanor. Borg sauntered around the court
and lost a game without looking like he was losing. Things have
changed, I thought. Wrong again. The sun was higher than it had
any right to be, and I could see that Eleanor was getting bored. I
wanted to kiss her on the right forearm. The bright tennis balls
tutted back and forth.
TOM BLAKE is a poet and music journalist from the South West of England. He has two chapbooks out with The Red Ceilings Press: Ƨ (2023) and Peach Epoch (2025). His poems have appeared in Anthropocene, And Other Poems and Perverse, and he is a regular contributor to KLOF magazine.
Read more by Tom Blake:
Buy Peach Epoch by Tom Blake
Poem in Anthropocene
Poem in And Other Poems