A Football Tournament At University Park, St Andrews 29/30.7.98
The whole scene reminds me a bit of Beryl Cook:
Everything bright colours, grass green as in a book
Of postcard reproductions; jerseys running about,
Blokes (the best word) stand on the touchline, shout:
'Get it away!' and 'Get on wi'it , Lochgelly'.
One of the trainers, a man with a fat belly,
Smoking a fag, yells at his proteges
To get the finger oot. I used in my yesterdays
To go and watch my son play for the Colts
Under 11s at home, away. The jolts
Of the Ford Transit minibus made some boys sick
So that they had to stop. Some teams were slick,
Stronger, quicker than ours. Parents patrolled the line
In little freezing groups. I'd sometimes entwine
One of the mothers with me to keep warm -
No big deal, just some purpose for my arm.
Then when they lost, or won,they'd disappear
Into the pavilion dressing room to hear
Some words of wisdom from the red-haired coach:
How Dozzy should play up forward, try to poach,
Or Mikey get stuck in on the right wing,
The passing game... the same old everything
That Scottish kids have heard and still will hear
Until the breweries run out of beer.
It's pretty hot, my body feels as heavy
As Gazza must, when he's been out on the bevvy -
Well, maybe not as bad as that: I jog;
Running's as easy as falling off a log
If you don't force the pace, stay on the grass.
I cross the Observatory road, and pass
Another tournament game in the next field,
Pause to pick up a Tango can half-concealed
In the shadow of trees. A man with a peaked cap
Comes metronome-like parallel to the street;
I note the strange positioning of his feet
And wait for him; we jog beside the hedge -
He seems to know me (a small privilege)
And he tells me he's doing the Ironman triathlon
In Wolverhampton - that and the decathlon
Are multi-events that I could never do
Being rather skinny, and myopic too,
Astigmatism's my genetic burden
As harmless in real life as in the garden
Weeds are: just something you might prefer
To be without, like Arthur and Guinevere
When he found out that Lancelot had her heart.
Off at a tangent again - better not start.
Steps near a cycle stand lead down to the North Haugh,
A natural paradise where you can hear the caw
Of rooks in most unimmemorial trees
Planted some time ago to keep the breeze
To some extent at bay. A badgers' sett
Lies hidden in the undergrowth, where wet
Leaves and slime-covered branches lie
Half-hidden. In winter, when the sky
Is frost-laden and star-struck, little people come
To test their sledge out and to freeze their bum
Toppling off at the foot. They labour up,
Dragging their sledge. Sometimes a playful pup
Joins in the fun. Today there's no-one here
Except a heron. At this time of year
The Highland Games are held - just last weekend
The 15th Games took place. My oldest friend,
Or one of them at least, puts the Games on.
I help him with some commentary: gone
Are the BBC's Archies and Dougies: instead
The crowd gets to hear me speaking French
And German to get visitors off the bench
And running round the sodden track, in gear
That varies greatly - kilts to bare chests - I fear
The SAF would not be pleased to see
Events run off with such frivolity.
Well, bugger them. The runners had some fun
To make up for the absence of the sun.
I cross the rickety planks that used to have
A wooden-handrail - vandals tore it down,
Coming home pissed from the central part of town,
Heading for Andrew Melville probably,
A prize-winning,concrete, sinking monstrosity
Stuck in the hillside, a wrecked ship
With portholes looking across. I slip
Over the wire-covered sleepers that allow
Access back over the burn, climb the knowe
Built artificially from discarded soil
When all these university buildings went up. Toil,
Envy, want, the patron and the jail:
Things, so Sam Johnson said, that the scholar's life assail:
Probably true today, if 'scholars' are
Students who get low grants and have no car,
Or academics whose salaries are static
And chances of promotion quite erratic
Because of quotas and cash limitations
Described, no doubt, in Adam Smith's 'The Wealth of Nations'.
I haven't read it - what a scholar me
(Note the disjunctive pronoun): history
I find more interesting than economics
Although of course the two of them intermix.
The dismal science - I run on past Chemistry,
Physics, Computer Science, glad to be
Nearly back home again.I'm feeling tired
And tingling with the feeling that I'm fired
Up to give birth again, rather like Zeus
Producing Aphrodite, not from the us-
Ual area but from his forehead, split
To generate a goddess, me a bit
More poetry, perhaps this, perhaps another:
If poems are children, who is then their mother
And father at the same time but the maker
Of all the verses and ideas, maybe a faker
In normal life but when the spirit moves
To get him or her writing, all the grooves
Of thought are smooth: you just need to sit down,
Forget about shopping and going into town,
Move into your MS document and then
You find you're writing poetry again.
