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Looking At A Photograph.. From 1955

Crispin Thomas

Friday, April 22nd, 2005

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 looking at a photograph from nineteen fifty five
these children on the dog-track the dawning of a life
these children on the touch-line their rattles and their cheers
while urging surging crowds behind all bellow in their ears

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 such youthful expectation captured here in time
all under wooden scoreboards and ancient Bovril signs
but where are all these children now looking back I know
at photographs and moments that haunt and linger so

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 where sixty thousand faces gaze upon this printed page
in blackened grains they stretch & strain yet never ever age
along the years and struggles and dreams they’d one day be
as proud of their own team as then when they were young & free

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 looking at a photograph of fifty more years on
there’s something here unchanging though kids & ground have gone
this special magic something which no-one can explain
that never fades and still pervades this simple people’s game

© CT05

Notes

written on the way to Charlton Athletic on the train from Stroud…looking at old pics.of Charlton and Chelsea,..but could have been anywhere..was on my way to do a workshop on Sam Bartram..legendary Charlton goalie…attended by Moira Bartram ..Sam’s daughter who flew over from Canada and 500 children… a great play too on his life was performed by Sub Rosa Theatre group…..and featured Sam..and football life from the blitz til today…thank you to Ben, Natalie,Kate and all at Charlton..to Peter Croker now 84 who played in the 47 Final ,who brought his medal…and still performed a football poem on Sam off by heart!…. to Ted for his classic charicatures..and to Peter Daniel for once again organising a great day …

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/looking-at-a-photograph-from-1955/