I’ve never ‘got’ football,
always felt like a bruise
I wasn’t sure how I’d got
or a changing room joke that involved
small ***** or arcane bullying

Perhaps my tutelage was bad
but the pattern in my head
is gammon woven
with misogyny, bigotry
and misunderstood pride

But these boys,
with unhappiness and graft built in,
with ‘other’ credibility,
broad shoulders, tough chins,
make me think that with my time again
I’d have listened

So to them, I opine:
you’ve earned a win,
and have one

It's a destiny on
everyday to
the sunbeams
to hit the soil
and the green
to grow fresh

It's a nature, every
seeded plant to start
growing with
germinated awakening

This, is not by guess
it's just on real incidents
That had so many did
in the dreaming of the
realities yesterday and
the day before yesterday

It was another time
Walking on the large pebbles
Of Beer beach
The long shadows of the
Dry docked boats of the
Local fishermen resting
Until the next morning on
The English Sea
Stretching towards the
Jurassic cliffs that crumble
Signs warning the visitors
Of the probability of
Falling rocks
Cliff pieces

It was another time
A time I almost
Forgot
Until I returned

Work? Still permitted.
If you’re still employed, that is.
Your windows are grey?
Just paint another rainbow.
Clap again if you fancy

haughty and hateful or pitilessly played,
head freed from embroidered shoulders,
her heart beat, heavy, behind corseted layers.
Temptress or model maiden,
she fell just the same.
The jewel in a king’s crown,
cast away for the next shining stone.

You waded through memories
on your throne
All of us look on, smiling,
False courtiers, pretend lovers
To the hag who was queen
Your Tudor eyes crinkle

As you pretend joy
At this false homage
From this worthless court,
All bows and manic grins
shining winter twilight coldly on you

You see Death in their eyes
As once before in your sister's
When her Spanish heart
Sent yours to the Tower

But your head did not roll on its green,
As your mother's once did
For tearing Christendom in two
For daring
To think
That a woman
Could have
A voice

You stroke Queen Anne's jewels
With her fingers,
The ones she gave you
When she loved your father
Despite all it cost the world

We, the victors of the Elizabethean age
Laugh at you, Elizabeth, aged,
****** Queen
Whose lover's letters litter
The back of her tear-stained pillow

When your cold Tudor eyes finally close
And end the dynasty first founded
On a woman's vicious piety,
Know that you,

Lilibeth,
Liquid eyes
that sunk a Thousand Ships,
Tinkling laughter
that tore men asunder,
Iron fist
that quashed a myriad hopes,
will not be mourned.