Football Poets

Hammers in America

West Ham now in the
Land of the Free
Where Trump and Biden
Swap elderly status
Hammers in Disneyland
A big kids playground
In fabulous Florida
Trump, still babbling absurdities
Biden, lost in a world of confusion
Oh poor Joe
Meanwhile the claret and blue
Latest edition
Building empires
Tortured at times with
Transfer hearsay
Linked with players
From every continent
Throughout the world
At least a thousand
On the last count
But maybe an exaggeration
Lopetegui, mixing and matching
With new fangled philosophies
Imprinting his mindset
West Ham, learning the ropes
Under radical regimes
Beaten by Palace in
Palatial form
A 3-1 setback for
Those East End entertainers
But still finding their feet
At the court of our Spanish
Toreador, bullish yesterday
But no need to panic
Just yet
More new arrivals
Summerville, the new Rembrandt
On the London Stadium easel
Art and beauty
So hard to find
At the beginning of August
But they’ll get there
Still though, a work in progress
Today Wan Bissaka perhaps
From United’s Theatre of Dreams
Waiting in the wings
The roar of the greasepaint
Aaron awaits the claret and blue
Reception committee
His stage to shine
Much needed defensive strength
And security, locking doors
On creaking hinges
WD 45, just a drop
Of oil needed
For a decent season
Then the great striker conundrum
Fulkrug, German goal machine
But 31, worrying but perhaps
The dream solution
Up front for a Hammers
Hankering desperately after
Another Pop Robson, Tony Cottee
Frank Mcavennie, just to
Keep recent seasons momentum
Alive but now firing
On all cylinders
We must hope
Forget Duran and the reflex
Villa, demanding a kings ransom
So West Ham
Enjoy those roller coaster rides
In the country that gave us
Hollywood glamour and schmaltz
A plethora of pancakes
To sweeten the pill of defeat
Meet and greet Mickey and Donald
But remember where you are
In a fortnight
It’s the late summer virility
Of vivacious Villa
Unai Emery’s Champions League
Bravehearts this season
Opening day jitters
Oh no, not again
What we’d give for that
Rarest of species
A West Ham victory
Just before the first
Conker fall of autumn
If the engine and carburettor
Are working, then who knows?
It could be the season to savour
But how often have we said that?
A brand new Stratford project
We can but hope.

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The Claret and Blue land

So here we are again
Ready and braced for
Another nine month marathon
Of Premier League hot air
And classic cameos
Local rivalries and
Household names,
Legendary spats,
Familiar friends
And foes, thrilling
Contests and battles
And then there was
The Land of Claret and Blue
In the heat of East London
Your genuine Hammers
West Ham go flamenco,
Paella for tea,
Matadors at half time
Julen Lopetegui
Spanish Harlem
At the London Stadium
No Inquisitions required
Just a delicious hors d’oeuvre
Of European Championship winning
Style of football,
Hopefully,
Followed by a rare to medium
Chateaubriand steak of
Quality
Gastronomic heaven
But today we learn
Of Colombians scheming
Behind the scenes
Surely no drug cartels
Amid the West Ham academy
Oh no simply not, never
The Hammers always do clean,
Pure and puritanical
Duran due in the East End
But, hold on,
Since when did Simon Le Bon
Have any allegiance to the
Iron clad Irons?
Wan Bissaka was about to
If not quite join West Ham
Then he was close, in the vicinity
Of the Happy Hammers
Approaching the front door
Then advanced negotiations
Became a stagnant pool of water
Just the daftest of rumours
The first transfer window shut
Firmly in claret and blue faces
Meaningless transactions
That may as well have been
Double Dutch, whatever that meant
Kyle Walker Peters,
Yet more hyphenated Hammers
A year since James Ward Prowse
Became a fully fleged JWP
KWP was just a whisper
At the back of the classroom
Dissolving and melting in
Transfer factory gossip
We do though, have three
A breathtaking Brazilian blend
Luis, barely out of
The school playground
Glorious Guilherme
And Wes Fotheringham
Another goalkeeper
Just in case Alphonse
And Fabian falter and
Lose their way
Some of us do like
The sound of Ivan Toney
From the buzzing Bees
Goal scoring oozing honey
Danes demanding ransom
Tomas Frank wants at least
A billion for Ivan
Certainly not the Terrible
Tomas, it’ll be a pleasure
To do business with you
So deals still in the pipeline
Nothing concrete in the jungle
Of football’s dangerous
Back waters
Just shifty, nudge nudge wink
Wink, know what I mean
And before you can say VAR
It’ll be back as inevitably
As Christmas, then the
August opener against fellow
Claret and blues
It could be a vintage year
For either

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Strawberries and dream / different strokes

Thwack!
Cold, hard steel smites tightly wound rubber banded core – Fore!
The least times the better

Thwack! (grunt!)
Steely-eyed metronome smites steel-edged hi-tensile cat-gut against
Rubber-encased pressurised air, over a taut net
The least times the better

Thwack! (grunt!) ouch!
A steel-edged hoe smites rock solid ground
To little or no horticultural effect
The least times the better

We’re now in that hazy, lazy void of a calendar
Even post AfCON, Copa America, WWC
Oh how I long for the surety
Where each thwack, could be boot to ball, or
Well-timed clash of well-honed bodies colliding, fairly
Where each strike of the ball is aimed, to settle squarely
IN the net
The more times the better

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