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Poems tagged ‘Ukraine’

What It Means To Be A Refugee

Crispin Thomas

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022

there’s no football in Ukraine this weekend
rivalries abandoned for a while
stadiums and streets lie torn and empty
no-one can be seen for mile on mile
women watching husbands go to battle
knowing not if they’ll see them again
in their shattered crumbling homes and cities
some of them we never knew their names
from so many countries they are leaving
this is what it means for them be
lost and homeless on a road to nowhere
what it means to be refugee

saying their goodbyes to friends and lovers
leaving with whatever’s on their back
danger lurking there on ev’ry corner
on each bombed-out road and railway track
dodging tanks and fire from young Russians
some of whom don’t know why they must be
killing for a tyrant with no concept
of what it means to be a refugee

caught up in a world that’s not their making
caught up in a War that make no sense
caught up in the chaos of this madness
praying ev’ry second it will end
here within the nightmare of this moment
can we really grasp or ever see
as the Spring is wakening around us
what it means to be a refugee

meanwhile in our towns and in our cities
we’re as far away as we can be
while they’re stuck on subways or on highways
like some scene from world war two or three
and there’s no football in Ukraine this weekend
rivalries abandoned for a while
stadiums and streets lie torn and empty
no-one can be seen for mile on mile
but if we are able and are willing
we can open up our homes to be
shelter for our brothers and our sisters
forced to be a homeless refugee

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I never dreamt it could be like this…

Clik The Mouse

Wednesday, March 30th, 2022

Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia
small towns, small teams
never featured in my dreams
but I feel for them right now
where the rampant fear, is that their touchlines
will be masked by tank tread-lines
spearheading an attacking force
that bears no resemblance
to any team sheet we could endorse;
that goalmouths would be pitted with potholes
penalty spots blasted by mortars and rockets;
with clubhouse plugs and sockets
commandeered for laptops and mobiles
busy plotting co-ordinates
to raze the next point of refuge;
football is cancelled: the oppressed retreated
all hope now
is that tyranny is defeated

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Decline and fall

Greg Freeman

Monday, March 14th, 2022

‘Some people think that football
is a matter of life and death …’

I was a Chelsea supporter
for 40 years before
the Roman empire.

Fan is short for fanatic.
Empires fall. Football’s
nowhere near
as important
as life and death.

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The Half Time News From Ukraine

Crispin Thomas

Tuesday, March 8th, 2022

the half time news is sad and long
the bombing and the war goes on
you start to feel it’s bad and wrong
to watch a football game
to see the skills of some new star
to carry on the way we are
while in a city street afar
the guns they sound again

the moment when you knew for sure
this mad man was intent on war
the looks on ev’ry face you saw
their lives now torn undone
the refugees an endless line
who left their all and home behind
and journeyed long in fear to find
the nightmare they’d begun

the scale is hard to understand
the ruthless moves from just one man
the deaths he sanctions with his hand
from safe within his room
the cronies who accompany
and fulfill these atrocities
we thought we’d left in history
to surface in the gloom

while you and I can walk and do
the things that other people do
and I can sleep here safe with you
still glad to be alive
and long for Saturday to come
another game here to be won
while they dodge tanks and men with guns
and try to just survive

the helpless feeing ev’ry day
as we sip lattés in cafés
and go about our silly ways
far from the battleground
and talk about our little teams
our projects and our business dreams
the stuff we do our ways and means
that goes on all around

for us the news is hard to take
but in Ukraine the mothers ache
as shelling makes the building shake
and dead lie on the streets
the shattered myth that love will win
as hopes for peace grow dark and slim
how can we take this hold from him
and force them to retreat

what drives a man intent on war
the need to kill and kill some more ?
and we may never know for sure
why evil still endures
and all the while the children cry
as families in bunkers lie
this Earth spins round once more

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We’ve Won in Rome. We’ve Won in Rome…

kevin raymond

Sunday, July 4th, 2021

In there, fighting still
Beating Ukraine four goals to nil
On a balmy night in The Eternal City…Rome.

Time to shower, board a plane
Fly back to Blighty, face The Danes
On Wednesday night in our Eternal Home.

Say…we dispatch the marauding Danes?
Are we a match for Italia or Spain?
On current form? I’d say the answers…yes.

Tis looking like this could be our year?
Let’s raise the roof, scream aloud n cheer,
Support the chaps…in their quest for success.

On the subject of success, though I digress,
Please raise a glass, come Monday next,
To 73 years, of our absolutely blinding…NHS.

We’ve won in Rome
We’ve won in Rome
We won four-nil, last night in Rome!
The road goes ever on, t’wards our Eternal Home.

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Ukraine Leave It Late ~ Day 17 Euro 2020 haiku

Crispin Thomas

Wednesday, June 30th, 2021

Ukraine leave it late

Zinchenko the diff’rence here

guess who they face next?

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Day 7 Euro 2020 haiku

Crispin Thomas

Saturday, June 19th, 2021

now well in the mix

early scares are put to rest

As Ukraine edge on

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

in a wall of sound

Austria are rolled aside

By a strong Oranje

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

with emotions high

Belgian class the difference here

as Denmark stand tall

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