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What Now?

Stuart Butler

Tuesday, May 29th, 2001

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 What Now?
What now, now that the ball is over?
What now, now that the season is a fading memory,
A mildewed basket of last year’s harvest-hopes?
What now at 3 o’ clock on these long Saturday afternoons –
Motor racing, meaningless, interminable, cricket scores,
Westerns, Perry Mason, athletics, more motor racing,
Golf, tennis, yet more motor racing and then the highspot,
The Antipodean pools results,
(Shall I adopt a team or not? But I never keep it up anyway,)
(The idea only lasts a week, it’s just too unreal,
And can I really take any interest in their league tables?
It’s just too vicarious and I’m more Pip than Magwitch)
What now, when there will be only 2 pages of football teletext news?
(And one of those is the aforesaid Australian irrelevant results)
What now when the spring time dawn chorus
And May time dew fall
Usher in high summer dog days?
Is it trips to Great Mills,
Car boot sales,
Shopping,
DIY,
Updating the photograph albums,
Putting in the bedding plants
And waiting for the footpaths to reopen?
What now, now that the ball is over?

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/what-now/?share=google-plus-1