Football Poets

Notes on a summer’s eve jog, during the pandemic

they all look on…
the raucous rooks rollick:
“hey porky, you’re too unfit”
the jiggedy jackdaw japes:
“you’re too infirm”
the swooping swifts swipe: […]

Can we do it?
Yes we can!
And we did
We went out and we played our matches
Bettered the opposition when we could
And enjoyed sporting contests
With fluent football to the fore.

But now we regrettably […]

there’s an eerie silence as I head off to bed –
the silence is natural
for I’m always the last to settle

but there’s a sense of devastation that permeates the corridors
a sense of damnation and enforce […]

Like a gnarled old hand, the spindly tree spread out above me
Stooped over the country lane
Its silhouetted fingers, tickling the hedge-hemmed curious calves

Lying in wait somewhere, hidden and camouflaged […]

If I wasn’t Ossie for the day
Then I’d be the Cat
For he was our hero
And that was that

All over the goalbox
He’d leap and spring
“There’s only one Peter Bonetti”
Oh, how the Shed would sing

And now […]

The nest-builders are as busy as ever….
a delightfully dappled thrush appears at one of my garden pots
checks surreptitiously for danger
instinctively knows I am fastened behind the bars, of toughened g […]

Usually, it’s an acerbic reaction
An emphatic ‘bothered’ and ‘bemoaned’
Whence learning of:
“All matches postponed”

But this time around
We nod and agree when it’s intoned
For containment of […]

I watched the first half live last night
then I switched off
for I guessed what would follow:
lauded team of Albion, one down to an early, fluky goal
a team unquenchable in the domestic league
but up against […]

I crossed over the road from the undertakers
walked in through the park gate
and there it was:
my old pitch, bathed in beautiful sun
still there
still marked, still in obvious use
And I remembered back
to […]

“By which a strip of land became a hole in time” – Dúrs Grunbein

The rec still holds the voices:
I pick Petie
I pick Paulie
I pick Danno
I pick Scanner…..
Or is it just compartments of my beleaguered mi […]

I know it must be winter
For the fixtures are piling high
Even though we’re lucky
And the weather’s kinda dry

I know I must be old now
For I rarely get to the games
And I’m also having troub […]

Tall and elegant of posture
With a warm, endearing smile
He’d materialize into the box
In his own enduring style

Everywhere he went
As Hammer, Spur, Canary
He was every fan’s favourite
Ghosting past the […]

And so José continues his journey
In North London clime
Subjecting with frosty demeanour
But is he well past his prime?

Certainly that’s our chary hope
Sarf of the river
But could this cussed, cranky cr […]

Why no poem?
Mojo magic’d away?
Zeitgeist scooted off?
Muse unamused?
Support spaffed up against a wall?
Or is it just
the embarrasment
of a ten year record
of non-defeat
too replete
for anapestic […]

there’s a stillness to the night –
sleep has zero’d in on the whole household
bar one
the night owl
the habitual moon-walker

and in the dying moments
afore they too join the slumber party
even the tinie […]

What a farce
I’ll have to pass – at any deep rooted analysis
Prorogation? Purely Parliamentary paralysis.
Has Bojo lost his mojo?
Leading us unto Brexit?
Surely a simple call of ”legs it!”
To over-ride the R […]