Football Poets

When you think that far back, games are framing devices
for otherwise lost days’ part-salvaged films

such as the one in late December ’93 –
I’ll call it Black Country Mince Pies –
in a Sierra Sapphire up the […]

When he takes a long haul flight
through the sun’s dipped beams outlining grey,
when everyone sleeps he stays awake.

When others revise for future tests
or diverted minds shift between screens,
Erling takes […]

There’s a different kind of freedom
when you opt out in faded Berghaus,
not carrying much over the bridge
as a train rattles over the viaduct
between stubble fields, lighting its way
like the end of your roll […]

Black cushions of recycled Continental
are semi-volatile compounds
like the Sandhurst centre-back
channelling his week into a tackle.

In Tiempos, feel the rubber crumb
of zinc-enriched non-organic […]

After all that transpired: injuries, bereavements, heartaches,
relegation to No.3 before a transfer back to Cardiff Met:
crucial stops at critical times.

After everything you didn’t plan –
the sun behind a […]

Through rain drifting across floodlight beams
and smoke off the hotdog hut
from a corner by the Thames

you can see through black metal railings
through the smog and instant snap of fag ash
a distant heap […]

The day the leaflets came, election sludge
we slip into like a soft play ball park,
they promised us all a new start.

The current incumbent wouldn’t smile,
just said ‘It’s strange how all these missi […]

The first is the Hollywood, lofted
or hooked thirty yards from its target’s foot
over an advertising board for East Neuk Salt.

The second is the slide rule
from a vision barely peripheral –
a pitch for […]

‘Be quiet; the weather’s on the night news.’
Stephen Malkmus, Watery, Domestic

Cirrus never whispers, or was that Texas?
What you really meant was cumulonimbus
with deep grey future rain around its […]

On this island, is it Saints or Pompey,
what do you say? Don’t ask me, my friend;
I’m a Bournemouth fan from Alum Bay.

When you look north, from Cowes,
or east, from Ryde, I’m around the headland
at Chilt […]

She was talking to me under the radio,
under the Saturday food programme
guests cautioned against innuendo

who went for humour in unlikely combos
while eyes sank lower above the wheel.
If anything can […]

We’ll play it safe and get there for sunrise.
Driving to Croydon, any day,
is like being at Exeter Services on a Saturday
in August, single file by West Cornwall Pasty.

So when should we leave? When will w […]

It was like that angst in the chest you mentioned, but then it exploded.

My ‘self’ was in a hundred fragments.All I had was a bed and a skylight,

a window on the incomprehensible.Drifting off, I m […]

A slow moving weather system,
burdened by a week of brooding, low-lying
internet traffic will break or settle
in the pre-match huddle.

Straining my eyes; who is that team?
They were so far gone from the […]

With gravity at a low centre,
you danced around temporary pairs
with teams matched up player for player.
Without seeing, but in your field of consciousness
you could sense it coming:
the reducer.

Their […]

Wembley you’ve been livin’ hell to me
with your Hanger Lane gyratory
traffic for no reason, regardless of the season,
and the IKEA cafe’s run out of lingonberry.

Wembley, I hate every inch of you.
Your […]

You hear it at every 5-a-side:
the myth of the man with time.
He’s rarely there, but you hear his name.
‘Paul – he must be 60 now – dictates the game.’

He’s reached the point where he rarely runs,
but […]

I knew it would happen; we missed the window.
Our boat didn’t come in and nor did we swim to it.

Our chairman had a month at Cowes Week.
The vice-president got trapped in industrial brioche,
was stuck in […]

The day I found out I was leaving,
no-one told me. It was on Ceefax, page 302:
I’m off to Bristol City!

Maybe it’s time to ride the Severn Bore
to Gloucester from Sharpness
in tomorrow’s dusk and […]