|

Let Football Wait

Crispin Thomas

Thursday, December 30th, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 how can I ever again wait anxiously
for news of other teams scores –
while thousands wait anxiously
for news of their lost loved ones?

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 how can I ever without guilt
look forward now to “important” games
or anything
when countless torn families
have nothing to look forward to
with vanished husbands wives
children grandchildren
sisters and brothers?

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 what right have you or I
to ever again get stressed
in slow-moving homeward traffic
when thousands weep
for those never coming home?

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 how can i ever again moan and whinge
though I know like you I will
about terrestrial TV how bad it is
and how few live games they show
after these pictures and these images?

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 these things that happen
these things that move us so
touch us consume us fill us with horror
envelop us in fear and sadness
these 9/11s
these Soham murders
this endless conflict in Iraq
this threat of terrorism
this sweeping capitalism
these leaders we have
how small and trivial they leave us feeling
how selfish they show us to be
we in our silly little worlds
of Christmas New Year’s Eve
the ‘Sales’ presents
parties going out
socialising
and writing football poetry
for our little site

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 how hard to comprehend
the sudden-ness of it all
we question everything now
those bodies faces down in mud..gone
those lives gone
those homes gone
those futures gone
blown away in their hundreds of thousands

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 too easy to ask why
as we we usually do
far better to give money love support
and clutch a living loved one close
a grand-child a brother
if you are so fortunate
as I will

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 for hard as it may seem life will go on
but for now
without wishing to sound
flippant or hypocritical

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 let football wait

© ct04

Notes

so strange so transient ..so precious this world..this life ..
what seems now like barely a few nights ago( the night before Christmas Eve ) I found myself in a little studio on BBC Radio London justr being silly, joking with callers and suggesting Mourhino for Prime Minister, writing stupid impromptu poems on the 12 days of Football Christmas and doing Christmassy football raps with my Casio..and then.. three days later another world and this tragedy of tragedies..
I was also originally some retrospective ” 2004 in football poetry” poem..but now I just pray tonight for all those souls..
I pray those moments were swift
and that from this sadness and great loss..
a better world will one day come …
peace

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/let-football-wait/?shared=email&msg=fail