Apr 2020
WE THREE
Sweeney goes down
on one knee
gathers the ball
safely to himself
before releasing to
the foot of Dwyer.
"Dinger!" he yelps
with pin point accuaracy .
"Thanks Ger!"
Dinger smirks as he chips
the ball over his own
and the defender's head
pivoting/turning
on the proverbial sixpence.
Dinger Dwyer
scorches down the left wing.
Then stops...lays back
at an angle of say 43 degrees.
Impossible to prove
without a protractor
in order to create the cross
that will arrive to me...Dempsey
in exactly say
another 7.7 seconds.
"Dinger!Dinger!Dinger!" I yell
like a little bell on legs.
"Ok memory...
can we stop it there?"
"Sure boss!"
Memory complies.
Time stops.
Enabling us to see Dinger
leap from his body
and run to where
he expects to place
the ball ...right...there
He draws an X
on the air
just like the Spot
the Ball competitions.
He has already chiselled
the ballistic progress of the ball
upon this summer evening
clear as a diagram.
Dinger then runs back
to his slanted body and
pops back into
his self again.
"Ok Memory you can
roll it from there!"
We gasp at
the perfect parabola of the pass.
I am not where
I should be.
Both the Murphy boys
have manged to turn me.
So that now I am
running backwards to
the waiting cross
"Blast. . .!" I am
not going to get
on the end of it.
No magnificent right footer.
No ****** brilliant header.
So I fling myself
straight up in the air
settle there as if I were
reclining on an invisible chaise lounge.
And: almost casually
indeed elegantly
raise a lazy right leg
going for the overhead
bicycle kick
that usually has me
fall flat on face
or ouch ****.
Shaking my skeleton
to the core.
I have the physics
of it down pat.
Even the quantum uncertainty
I only laugh at.
I am a human
vector.
"Only connect!"
Foster whispers in my ear.
Time. Now.
Timeless.
I with all the time
in the world
****** into this
one second.
This second of all
seconds.
The ball whistles
past Mike Murphy's left ear.
A real stinger.
I thank God for a Dinger.
It rockets between
the jumpers and schoolbag goalposts.
Rolls all the way
past the Power Station and beyond
to Sgt. Major Dwyer's plot
who stops foot on a *****'s lug.
Chases away
a persistent wasp.
My mother across the road
at No. 31 O' Higgins Road
lulls her newest newborn
lullabies him in his pram.
This is the only time
I will ever be
great
morphing into my hero
Denis Law.
I now a Law unto my self.
I and my icon
blending into one.
The one armed raised salute
fingers gripping the cuff of the shirt
all the better to wipe
the snotty nose.
It seems as if
it couldn't have
been any other way
than this.
The Sweeney/Dwyer/Dempsey magic.
We the small Gods of this little time
that exist now
only in my mind.
Shakespeare is going mad
in the commentary box
his voice echoing in so
many wireless sets
the Bard's spittle
flecking the mic.
"How now, my hearts?"
Shakespeare searches for the words.
"Did you never see
the picture of we three."
Sweeney goes down
on one knee
gathers the ball
safely to himself
before releasing to
the foot of Dwyer.
"Dinger!" he yelps
with pin point accuaracy .
"Thanks Ger!"
Dinger smirks as he chips
the ball over his own
and the defender's head
pivoting/turning
on the proverbial sixpence.
Dinger Dwyer
scorches down the left wing.
Then stops...lays back
at an angle of say 43 degrees.
Impossible to prove
without a protractor
in order to create the cross
that will arrive to me...Dempsey
in exactly say
another 7.7 seconds.
"Dinger!Dinger!Dinger!" I yell
like a little bell on legs.
"Ok memory...
can we stop it there?"
"Sure boss!"
Memory complies.
Time stops.
Enabling us to see Dinger
leap from his body
and run to where
he expects to place
the ball ...right...there
He draws an X
on the air
just like the Spot
the Ball competitions.
He has already chiselled
the ballistic progress of the ball
upon this summer evening
clear as a diagram.
Dinger then runs back
to his slanted body and
pops back into
his self again.
"Ok Memory you can
roll it from there!"
We gasp at
the perfect parabola of the pass.
I am not where
I should be.
Both the Murphy boys
have manged to turn me.
So that now I am
running backwards to
the waiting cross
"Blast. . .!" I am
not going to get
on the end of it.
No magnificent right footer.
No ****** brilliant header.
So I fling myself
straight up in the air
settle there as if I were
reclining on an invisible chaise lounge.
And: almost casually
indeed elegantly
raise a lazy right leg
going for the overhead
bicycle kick
that usually has me
fall flat on face
or ouch ****.
Shaking my skeleton
to the core.
I have the physics
of it down pat.
Even the quantum uncertainty
I only laugh at.
I am a human
vector.
"Only connect!"
Foster whispers in my ear.
Time. Now.
Timeless.
I with all the time
in the world
****** into this
one second.
This second of all
seconds.
The ball whistles
past Mike Murphy's left ear.
A real stinger.
I thank God for a Dinger.
It rockets between
the jumpers and schoolbag goalposts.
Rolls all the way
past the Power Station and beyond
to Sgt. Major Dwyer's plot
who stops foot on a *****'s lug.
Chases away
a persistent wasp.
My mother across the road
at No. 31 O' Higgins Road
lulls her newest newborn
lullabies him in his pram.
This is the only time
I will ever be
great
morphing into my hero
Denis Law.
I now a Law unto my self.
I and my icon
blending into one.
The one armed raised salute
fingers gripping the cuff of the shirt
all the better to wipe
the snotty nose.
It seems as if
it couldn't have
been any other way
than this.
The Sweeney/Dwyer/Dempsey magic.
We the small Gods of this little time
that exist now
only in my mind.
Shakespeare is going mad
in the commentary box
his voice echoing in so
many wireless sets
the Bard's spittle
flecking the mic.
"How now, my hearts?"
Shakespeare searches for the words.
"Did you never see
the picture of we three."
