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BEAUTIFUL GAME

P Maguire

Friday, June 25th, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 The technicolour black and white
Diamond brilliance
Of generations who stood
On the terrace choir
Throats blistered with unrequited passion
Whilst its youth watched champions deposed
And parliament auction the colours
Were loyalty limped off ragged worn and tired
A defeated flag
This football life
Where the summers are long and
The winters oh so short
Of the game that called for disciples
And chose Saints to preach its gospels
And sinners to bear witness to its
Open heart and closed hand
This football life
Tumbling through the looking glass at the end
Of the rainbow
Moving into hearts with the effortless
Ease of night slipping into day
Its atmosphere alive with the thudding pulse
The rising pant of expectation
Stepping out of textbooks and history books
Into a kaleidoscope of noise and celebration
Where leather caseys parcelled in mud
And sweat and blood and philosophy and pain
Can still grace a sky whilst beneath sit the faithful
And the fortunate
As hope waits with its pockets stuffed
With bitten nails
This football life
A game to break your heart come spring
And then
At the beginning of summer’s end
To fall in love
Again
And again
And again…

Notes

taken from “Beautiful Game” (c) Parry Maguire (2004)

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/beautiful-game-2/