Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini, by Clive James

Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini


For I know it tastes as pure as Malvern water,

Though laced with bright bubbles like the aqua minerale

That melted the kidney stones of Michelangelo

As sunlight the snow in spring.



Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini

In a green Lycergus cup with a sprig of mint,

But add no sugar-

The bitterness is what I want.

If I craved sweetness I would be asking you to bring me

The tears of Annabel Croft.



I never asked for the wristbands of Maria Bueno,

Though their periodic transit of her glowing forehead

Was like watching a bear's tongue lap nectar.

I never asked for the blouse of Françoise Durr,

Who refused point-blank to improve her soufflé serve

For fear of overdeveloping her upper arm-

Which indeed remained delicate as a fawn's femur,

As a fern's frond under which cool shadows gather

So that the dew lingers.



Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini

And give me credit for having never before now

Cried out with longing.

Though for all the years since TV acquired colour

To watch Wimbledon for even a single day

Has left me shaking with grief like an ex-smoker

Locked overnight in a cigar factory,

Not once have I let loose as now I do

The parched howl of deprivation,

The croak of need.



Did I ever demand, as I might well have done,

The socks of Tracy Austin?

Did you ever hear me call for the cast-off Pumas

Of Hana Mandlikova?

Think what might have been distilled from these things,

And what a small request it would have seemed-

It would not, after all, have been like asking

For something so intimate as to arouse suspicion

Of mental derangement.

I would not have been calling for Carling Bassett's knickers

Or the tingling, Teddy Tinling B-cup brassière

Of Andrea Temesvari.



Yet I denied myself.

I have denied myself too long.

If I had been Pat Cash at that great moment

Of triumph, I would have handed back the trophy

Saying take that thing away

And don't let me see it again until

It spills what makes this lawn burst into flower:

Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini.



In the beginning there was Gorgeous Gussie Moran

And even when there was just her it was tough enough,

But by now the top hundred boasts at least a dozen knockouts

Who make it difficult to keep one's tongue

From lolling like a broken roller blind.

Out of deference to Billie-Jean I did my best

To control my male chauvinist urges-

An objectivity made easier to achieve

When Betty Stove came clumping out to play

On a pair of what appeared to be bionic legs

Borrowed from Six Million Dollar Man.



I won't go so far as to say I harbour

Similar reservations about Steffi Graf-

I merely note that her thigh muscles when tense

Look interchangeable with those of Boris Becker-

Yet all are agreed that there can be no doubt

About Martina Navratilova:

Since she lent her body to Charles Atlas

The definition of the veins on her right forearm

Looks like the Mississippi river system

Photographed from a satellite,

And though she may unleash a charming smile

When crouching to dance at the ball with Ivan Lendl,

I have always found to admire her yet remain detached

Has been no problem.



But when the rain stops long enough for the true beauties

To come out swinging under the outshone sun,

The spectacle is hard for a man to take,

And in the case of this supernally graceful dish-

Likened to a panther by slavering sports reporters

Who pitiably fail to realise that any panther

With a topspin forehand line drive like hers

Would be managed personally by Mark McCormack-

I'm obliged to admit defeat.



So let me drink deep from the bitter cup.

Take it to her between any two points of a tie-break

That she may shake above it her thick black hair,

A nocturne from which the droplets as they fall

Flash like shooting stars-

And as their lustre becomes liqueur

Let the full calyx be repeatedly carried to me.

Until I tell you to stop,

Bring me the sweat of Gabriela Sabatini.




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Clive James é um interessante septuagenário australiano, poeta, escritor e algumas coisas mai,s que acha por exemplo  que as religiões são: "advertising agencies for a product that doesn't exist". Por estas e pelo poema acima, lembrando uma beleza do ténis que é seis anos mais nova do que eu, Clive James tem todo o meu respeito. E inveja, pois foi amigo pessoal de Lady Di.