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THE GOALKEEPER’S REVENGE

Patrick B. Osada

Tuesday, July 6th, 2004

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Travelling west towards my childhood home
I found myself becoming retrospective.
Following a bypass round the city
I once knew, I see from new perspectives

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Landmarks transformed or vanishing from view.
I look with stranger’s eyes across the plain
Towards immutable surrounding hills –
My only sense of place is in the names.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Unexpectedly a vista opens,
Transporting me in time back forty years,
Old memories give words for me to mutter
And “Plock Court” is a name I seem to hear.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Our team seemed so effete in green and yellow,
The champions looked strong in red and black;
We only had one teacher to support us,
While half their school was roaring at my back.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 To make it worse they had this centre forward :
A one man team, as strong as any man,
He cut a swathe through all our best defenders –
Saving his shots almost broke my hands.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 Within a minute he’d scored from a corner,
Stooping down low to head across our line,
The crowd jeered at me for my desperate efforts,
He laughed, and pointing at me said, “You’re mine.”

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 With each attack he’d laugh at my fumbles,
Called me, “Lucky,” when I made a save;
The referee ignored his dreadful sledging –
When you’re eleven it’s hard to be brave.

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 Suffice to say, we played very badly –
Loosing eight – nil, we didn’t have a prayer –
To make life worse HE got a double hat trick,
So I trudged off pretending not to care.

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 Cycling home, I cried with frustration
And vowed that somehow I would get revenge;
My younger self could never guess the outcome –
How his slights would finally be avenged.

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 Years later : my office in the city,
“Mr. Picton, sir, come about a loan.”
It’s funny how a face can stay and haunt you –
It was the one my younger self had known.

© Patrick B. Osada 06/08/01

Notes

This poem will be appearing in my second collection, “Short Stories : Suburban Lives”, to be published late summer ’04 by Bluechrome.
For more information go to www.poetry-patrickosada.co.uk

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/the-goalkeepers-revenge/