|

Play Suspended

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 In those icy waters, with winter coming on,
a computer guides the conqueror worm to its target.
At Goose Green, a playing pitch has been cratered
with bombs. The shrapnel in a soldier’s chest
outweighs the thud of the soccer ball:
the patriotic lust to win on the football field,
England versus Argentina,
never saw the blood shed in this scrap
over sheep-grazing land.
Before, winning was the game.
When we lost, we never lost like this.

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Christopher T. George

Notes

This was written at the time of the Falklands War, on May 5, 1982, after the sinking of the British destroyer HMS Sheffield and the loss of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano with over 300 men lost, sunk by the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror on Sunday, May 2.

Source: https://footballpoets.org/poems/play-suspended/