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Grass Roots

Alex Saynor

Sunday, March 1st, 2015

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Instinct control on a pitch so waterlogged
we could have kayaked: well just forget it.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Who wouldn’t slide in where they shouldn’t,
emerging from a coal mine lagoon
every form of slate seems to blacken?

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Make a wall and break it up. Huddle after kick-off
so the opposition run in V formation,
move in echelons towards the goal, sinking.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Did it cross the line? Well no-one can see.
That doesn’t mean it didn’t.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 A new kid crossed himself before the swamp,
had Messi on his back like a redundant continent
swept beneath a viaduct, an eagle losing to pigeons

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 before they even mobbed him up. Game over,
young Lionel’s a washed-up vagrant
through initiation, other boys’ customs.
They accepted him, no question.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Launch it, just launch it high and trip
over one another as you scramble
to where you feel you need to be.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 All the chalk has broken anyway,
the blackboard stand has woodworm
and the stepping stones to the clubhouse

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 are underwater. So comically,
the coach sits with his iPad for a debrief,
a technically advanced grass-island

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 post-mortem. ‘Listen boys,
the conditions were tough out there today
and what was said this morning

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 doesn’t hold this afternoon.
Don’t get me wrong lads, we’ll play on the carpet
next time, follow our principles
when the earth dries out.’

© Alex Saynor 2015

Notes

Influenced by taking my 5-year-old son to ‘football’ training.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/grass-roots-3/