Football Poets

Diego Maradona

The best and worst that a man could be
A champ, a cheat, a deity
He walked the Earth like you and me
Diego Maradona

He eased past defenders like they weren’t there
The barrel-chested footballer
At 15 the family breadwinner
Diego Maradona

In football’s clamour he found his peace
The first name on every club’s teamsheet
You could trust him – with a football at his feet
Diego Maradona

He’s the immortal that every footballer met
He may be the greatest player seen just yet
Who put the ball in the England net?
Diego Maradona

Pele was the heart of a beautiful team
But Maradona, he was the dream
He was all muscle and grace, or so it seemed
Diego Maradona

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Deus Maradona, 1960 – 2020

Diego does go
Full of flair and flamboyance
Flawed yet feted

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Diego Maradona 1960-2020

It was a dream come true
I’d emptied my savings tin
My broad smile stretched
From Bognor to Berlin

I would be the proud owner
Of a Diego Maradona boot
Now the barrel chested ones
Latest fanclub recruit

Sprinting down Whitechapel Road
I dragged along me Mam
Dropping a shopping bag en route
Shattering a jar of jam

“You wear them, you’ll play like him”
The shop assistant said
I believed every single word
My beaming smile spread

A walking Ambassador I became
I put those boots to use
On grass, tarmac, concrete
Each time I got set loose

Wear them on the old sandpitch
In the thick of the Berner Estate
Not ideal for that surface
But that was open to debate

Even wore them to school
On an odd day or three
“Get them off right now!”
Hawkeyed Margaret would scream

Wore them into the ground
Even when they were a goner
Yes, the one and only
Puma Maradona

Goodbye to you Armando
A Druid, a one off edition
Eternal Gracias Dieguito
Footballs flawed magician

25 11 20

number7
© emdad rahman

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Maradona RIP

golden boy of skill
in one moment with his hand
broke a million hearts

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More Than A Footballer – Maradona

I loved you
Even tho others
Said you were
A ‘cheat’
I loved you
For your genius
Wild and unpredictable
Making up then breaking
All the rules
And you were
Who I was, always,
Playing football
On that Liverpool street.

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Maradona

The genius of Maradona
In those god-given toes
that mane of untamed curls
and the knowing hand
that could not steal the beauty
of that second goal.

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Maradona’s Second Goal

Oh how well orchestrated the redemption
Playing cards with God
No sleight of hand needed
When the boots were blessed
With such divine miracles
6 lions not 3 left stranded bewildered
Some say bewitched and mesmerized
As Maradona, the dark prince, the rebellious angel
Wove a path to glory that left no footprints
What miracles for feet
What poems born from
The golden boots beneath
Southern skies
Upon a pitch blessed
By the limbs of alchemy
Oh fields of fire
Apathy and despair banished
The English interlopers
Humbled and slain
By such defiant skills
Hand of scopa feet of fireworks
So achingly beautiful
The Angels dipped low
And like us mortals
Breathlessly watched
Now everyone laughs at the “fat man”
Playing up to the cameras
In his footie shirt bursting at the seams
Like his bloated skin
People love to mock the fallen angel
Because his flaws make him more human
For his football skills were truly divine
And that hand of God?
We forgive him wholeheartedly
For the left foot of God was too beautiful
To be denied
For the salvation retrieving the inherent charm
The audacious skill that needed no helping hand
Those flying defiant legs dancing through defences
To leave them floundering
Like ships lost at sea as you and your erratic genius
Scored noisily into hearts and headlines
Leaving fingers free to punch
Only the sky…

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