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The death of custard

Peter Goulding

Thursday, May 10th, 2018

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 I heard them curse the lack of silverware,
those diehard fans from lonely Ross-on- Wye,
still yearning hopelessly for football’s heir.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 I gazed upon the concrete bridge to Skye,
that distant island ‘rescued’ from the brink,
no longer counted in with Man and Wight.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 I dreamt of Agincourt again to drink
the stirring sight of some forgotten knight,
astride a snow-white stallion, pawing earth.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 I smelled and smelled the grassy dales
where Wordsworth roamed and realised, with little mirth,
that custard is not solely made by Bird’s.

Notes

The town of Ross on Wye recently lost its football club. A week’s wages from a top player could have saved it.
This is a bouts rimes poem, in response to a competition in the Oldie. In a Bouts Rimes, you take the last word of each line of a famous poem, in this case “Tewkesbury Road” by John Masefield, leave them in position but create a whole new poem. Mine is not quite as it should be – I have punned!! Masefield’s poem –

It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where,
Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither or why;
Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush of the air,
Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.

And to halt at the chattering brook, in a tall green fern at the brink
Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and white;
Where the shifty-eyed delicate deer troop down to the brook to drink
When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.

O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,
Is a tune for the blood to jig to, and joy past power of words;
And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth
At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.

(Not bad, but a bit more football content required, John)

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-death-of-custard/