|

Vialli Vialli

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Vialli Vialli
In stereophonic symmetry
Crying out across the land
Tonight at the Bridge
Chelsea lower their flags
For their beloved one
Gianluca Vialli
Today departs from
His West London home
Of his stunningly
Ornamented career
Where the love flowed
From the vocal adenoids
Of the Shed, full throated
Appreciation of special
Moments and times
Of shifty feet,
Darting, sensing,directing
The flow of traffic
When Chelsea purred forward
Measurement and thought in
Every pass and tackle
Then the explosion of goals
Outside and inside penalty
Areas, an infuriating pest
To bamboozled defenders
Lethal and lissome, bold
But never cold
Classically striking up front
Accompanied by Zola
The double, dynamic team
Of the Italian job
With no assistance at all
From Michael Caine or
Benny Hill
Although Vialli did blow
Those stubborn doors down
But now Vialli is sadly
No longer in the world
Of the Blues unfurled
When the rhythms of the
Nation during the magnificent
Ancestors of Cooke, Wilkins,
Hutchinson, Webb, Alan Hudson
Spread harmony across the fields
Of Stamford Bridge
While the winds of change
Brought cultural shifts
And the Premier League was born
So too, the impeccable Cantona,
The eternally stylish Bergkamp,
Henry haughty, but blisteringly
Lethal up front at the haven of
Arsenal’s Highbury
But now Gianluca Vialli
Leaves this earth
With wisps of joy
Floating with feet
Of smoothness
Then the afterburners
Of acceleration, what pace
Another streak of lightning
But Vialli was simply unstoppable
Above the turmoil, hurly burly
Touched with class and higher realms of
Ethereality, the most delicate touch
On another planet surely
An angel of the Bridge
The stamp of legend
Where the first seeds of promise
Flowered then properly flourished
In the 21st century of Chelsea’s
Wildest fantasies
Once Drake’s ducklings
Now the neatly moulded
Creations of the Potter’s wheel
But now the legacy of Vialli’s
Memory
Leaves its well chiselled features
For ever more.

19

Notes

A few words of richly deserved praise for the late and much missed Gianluca Vialli.

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/vialli-vialli/