Homebird (No 6 of ¡Las Canciones Bravas!)

Thousands head for home as London 2012 signs off in spectacular fashion,

METRO, 13 August 2012

London survived the Games
the only casualty the cynic pained
to find no flaw to aggravate
into an ugly sore.

For the first time in my lifetime
of Spanish holidays I have yearned
to return to dour English streets,
a Londoner by choice.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Salmon's Leap (No 3 of ¡Las Canciones Bravas!)

Lord Coe calls for more compulsory schools sports to capitalise on Games

i, 7 August 2012

Finding the measure of Spanish light
I see hands reach up, out of the blue
to slap a two foot sac of breath
across a pontooned net,

youths more at home with PS2s
leap like salmon and, whooping, splash
back beneath the surface tension,
the space between sports and games.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Touchdown (No 1 of ¡Las Canciones Bravas!)

Murray mints himself a gold medal

Evening Standard, 5 August 2012

Tilting at our final descent
into Girona's dawn, we are cupped
like a candle's flame by the Pyrenees
ascending - a welcome of sorts -

setting us down upon burning seas
of ripening maize and sunflowers
bowed by seed. Our shadows scrape
across their gold-disc sun.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Gloriana (reprise)

Aboard Gloriana, a stately last leg for the Olympic flame

Evening Standard, 27 July 2012

The five-ring circus has woven

this nation into a tapestry

of sorts, its emblematic flame

shuttling all over Albany,

reminding us that patriotic zeal

is now the only sanctioned bigotry.

So get behind the flame, hurrah!

Your indifference smells of heresy

in a land where any Olympic dissent

has become unacceptable, socially,

like wanking in public places

or over photos of Her Majesty.

We can each of us carry a torch

for the games, for democracy

is spoken here if not always practiced

in the interests of the majority.

The royal barge awaits, our chance

to put a torch to the monarchy.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The longest walk

Wrong flag at soccer game angers North Koreans

Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2012

Though none dared dissent

into the tunnel now slips

one player, stalling

only to tighten

her laces and stretch loose

her tight quadriceps,

dazzled by the roar.

The tunnel runs north to south,

by a leap of faith

she becomes reborn,

her cord thus severed, she breathes

freedom and glory.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

The greatest spectacle on earth

Lack of exercise is as bad for you as smoking

Mail Online, 18 July 2012

A circus is coming, and over London
hangs a feature bereft tarpaulin,
grey as the skin of a child fleeing
the rubble of her flattened home.
Tears run down my window pane.
It is six weeks since the last full moon.

Confined, we are obliged to live
under the weather, and while we wait
for a forecast of more of the same to come
the evening TV news lambasts us
for sitting and watching what they put on.
The dog wants its blanket back.

It’s tempting to exercise just to get warm.
Nothing extreme, mind, possibly running
a bath. Or taking a hike to the fridge.
The wife says the lawn needs mowing.
I tell her I’d need a submarine. She says
fetch the damn mower, I’ll plug it in.


(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Tumbleweed

Olympic travel chaos as M4 reopening delayed

The Telegraph, 11 July 2012

I was drawn to a stillness

like Christmas in the snow at dawn

and held in thrall by the sight

of wild daisies sprouting

from a crack in the elevated stretch

of the M4 from Heathrow.

Spectators crowded round

to gawp like the dead reborn

in a spontaneous communion

of awed disbelief.

We expected bedlam.

We expected to be over-run.

We expected to be crowded

off our own streets

and out of our homes.

We have conscripted an army.

We have posted lookouts

and placed machine gun pods

on the rooftops of schools

and old people’s homes.

We demanded gas masks,

the council gave us phrase books.

We look up and find no words

for what we see, for henge,

for relic, for tumbleweed.

(c) Slush Poet

The running man

Liverpool shooting leaves one man dead

The Guardian, 14 June 2012

To commemorate the recent passing

of the Olympic flame

someone chalked on our pavement

the outline of a running man.

Rain has washed the chalk away now,

only his crimson heart remains

and that seems to be running away

if only down the drain.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Olympian rents

Hotel prices soar by 300% for Games

The Sunday Times, 15 January 2012

Dust off Vaughn Williams,

Handel, Elgar and Holst;

what need for a German

Ode to Joy, we grow our own;

it’s the Dunkirk spirit,

don’t you know?

Over meadowed hilltop

sways the circus caravan;

gypsies spill from tenements

like pig tripe from a bucket

lured to a pied piping melody:

easy money! easy money!

Mrs Dodd has let her

beechwood garden chalet

to the Samoan relay squad;

the Council says it’s a shed,

but with the tools removed

who are they to say?

Liam and Amy set

a wedding date

several years ago.

They’d have hoped by now

to save and squander the price

of a wedding breakfast,

but there is no room

at any inn. They’ll keep their cash

and marry in Vegas:

a Parisian paid in advance

a white wedding sum for a week

in their Council flat.

Doctor Downs put in

for thirty thousand pounds

of prime Olympiad.

How galling must it be

for his family to receive

but one tenth their need?

The prayers of Reverend Meek

must have raised a smile

up there. Tickets drip-dripped

through the leaky church roof

for the opening, the closing

and all in between.

He could rightly sit

beside the Parisian, watch

Samoa steel to victory

in the crucible of truth.

Or sell the tickets on e-bay

for black market lead.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet