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Pledge

Philip Rush

Wednesday, May 17th, 2006

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 I make my pledge.
I shall never attend
another game
at The Boleyn Ground

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 watching the claret and blue
of my longest,
most whimsical
love affair,

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 its furtive,
butterfly joys
and its clumsy
disappointments …

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 I shall never attend
another game
at The Boleyn Ground
without praying

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 for Shahara Akther Islam,
for her inarticulate father,
and for her grandfather
holding his despair

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 like a prayer bead,
unable to express himself,
not in the language
of his birth

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 nor in the language
of Whitechapel,
London, Plaistow
and The Boleyn Ground.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 I make my pledge,
that when I exercise my freedom
to gather
at The Boleyn Ground

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 to indulge
in the quirkiest love affair
of my life,
I will pray

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 for the soul of
Shahara Akther Islam
and for the souls of her family
and for the souls of her friends.

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 When the church is open,
I will pray for her there,
between The Boleyn Arms
and The Boleyn Ground,

12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 to Our Lady
of Compassion.
And when the church is closed
I shall make my space.

13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 And in my prayer for
Shahara Akther Islam
will be compressed my prayers
for all those whose lives

14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 were stolen
from them –
they were not lost,
those lives,

15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 they were stolen
from their rightful owners,
as others in my stolen name
have stolen lives elsewhere –

16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 for the boyfriends
whose every future
kiss will taste unfairly
of betrayal,

17 Leave a comment on verse 17 0 for the daughters
and the petty criminals,
for the footballers
and the hairdressers,

18 Leave a comment on verse 18 0 for the administrators
and the tour guides,
for the computer analysts
and the accountants.

19 Leave a comment on verse 19 0 For all of these ordinary lives
with their ordinary loves
like a shelf full of novels
there was no time to read,

20 Leave a comment on verse 20 0 this is my pledge.

© Philip Rush 2005

Notes

Written after the bombings in London.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/pledge/