|

Slack at the back

Apollo Gees

Tuesday, July 28th, 2015

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Between tangled nodes and warped wire
there lies a rarity, a hidden gem,
albeit one hidden in plain sight,
the unearthing of which, spurs an homage

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Ted Hughes is not normally a venue
in my whimsical web trawling
but a fine catch emerges from the depths
of a Peak District village called Slack

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 therein the master poet
brandishes his bardic bent
to describe how
“rubbery men bounced after” the “blown ball”

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 In the ravine ravaged scarps
“the rain lowered a steel press”
to which The Sun of yore
would’ve added red topped peaks

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 silently, the setting light
“mixed its mad oils”
and the benevolence of the bard
lifts the clouds from our eyes

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 the golden glow
of finding a hymn among the hemlock
is akin to a Messi gem
in a miasma of mundanity

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 thereupon a pogrom of puns
and a litany of alliteration
entice us benignly
“to puddle glitter”

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 There’s no result to report, in this Slack game
but read between the lines
and the bewitching wingers
deliver a bouncing beauty

© Apollo Gees, 28th July 2015

Notes

What a pleasant surprise, when settling into ‘The Pennine Way at 50’, presented by Paul Rose on BBC2 last night, to see a paean to Ted Hughes’ poem ‘Football at Slack’!

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/slack-at-the-back/