Football Poets

The Goal Was Gaping Wide

¶ 1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 When I was young, I used to be impetuous and rash,
Couldn’t wait to date a girl, and grow a big moustache.
My Dad advised me differently, when taking me aside,
“Don’t snatch your shot,” he told me, “when the goal is gaping wide.”

¶ 2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 But I’d grown up too quickly, and by then could not retreat,
Went off to seek the world, though it was laid out at my feet.
My mother straightened down my hair and eloquently sighed,
“Just show some concentration, when the goal is gaping wide.”

¶ 3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 I travelled all around the globe with wonderment so keen,
But every hill I wandered up, the grass was not so green.
I met a man in Kazakhstan who claimed that he had died.
“A rush of blood,” he told me, “when the goal was gaping wide.”

¶ 4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 The ladies of the Philippines, they tousled up my hair,
Cosseted my bruises with such tender loving care.
But once I again I failed, when the result was cut and dried,
And blazed it high and mighty, when the goal was gaping wide.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 I descended to a twilight world of strange and lurid dreams,
Where every bolstered comfort’s not exactly what it seems.
Escape is so much harder when you have no sense of pride.
I heard spectators snigger when the goal was gaping wide.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 I landed in Australia with a rucksack on my back,
I filled my water bottle and I followed every track.
I met a girl in Alice Springs and she became my bride.
“Don’t look around,” she told me, “when the goal is gaping wide.”

¶ 7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 But my feet soon started itching and I left her in July,
A breeze sprang up from nowhere and it whistled through the sky.
I remember when I told her, and she hung her head and cried,
But shooting was too easy when the goal was gaping wide.

¶ 8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 From Katmandu to Timbuktu, I searched for some belief,
But the cold walls of religion could afford me no relief,
A holy man in Yucatan expressed what I’d denied,
There isn’t any glory when the goal is gaping wide.

¶ 9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 Nature has a beauty that can leave you feeling breathless,
An all-embracing splendour that is bountiful and deathless,
But I merely glanced about me, without shortening my stride,
Missed the ball completely, when the goal was gaping wide.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 I kissed a girl in Gothenburg, who played the mandolin.
“Won’t you sing along with me?” she asked me with a grin.
Our voices, incompatible, just did not coincide.
The football caught a divot when the goal was gaping wide.

¶ 11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 I hailed a vagrant hypnotist with no arse in his pants
And asked him most politely if he’d put me in a trance.
“The cost would be too great for you,” he sorrowfully replied.
Was it an illusion that the goal was gaping wide?

¶ 12 Leave a comment on verse 12 0 I won a lot of money from a chancer in a suit,
And lost it all that evening in a house of ill-repute.
Which gave me the more pleasure, I could never quite decide.
Style is so important when the goal is gaping wide.

¶ 13 Leave a comment on verse 13 0 I settled for the month of May to do a farmer’s books.
His daughter had the darkest eyes and gave me dirty looks.
Soon enough I found that there was nowhere left to hide,
Like when the ball comes over and the goal is gaping wide.

¶ 14 Leave a comment on verse 14 0 The more I saw, the more that I mislaid my sense of wonder,
I broke into a gallop as my mind was dragged asunder.
The inner gropings of my heart were cruelly defied.
The ball was disappearing, though the goal was open wide.

¶ 15 Leave a comment on verse 15 0 I nearly died in Canada, but kept death out of reach,
Sitting on the rocks to watch the waves flow up the beach.
And I perceived a pattern in the rhythm of the tide,
But still I hesitated when the goal was gaping wide.

¶ 16 Leave a comment on verse 16 0 My feet were growing weary, though my mind was still alert.
Autumn was a season I knew I could not avert.
A lady in a Maserati offered me a ride,
Another chance not taken when the goal was gaping wide.

¶ 17 Leave a comment on verse 17 0 And now I sit in solitude and think of her sometimes.
The stiffened breeze torments my head and tinkles through the chimes,
I gaze down at my walking stick, so useless by my side,
Remembering how I fluffed it, when the goal was gaping wide.