Armed to the Tip

Surrounded by death,

Armed with a pen:

With each last breath

I think about then…

Your eyes smile still

From the edge of home:

Tell me, just then,

Did you feel so alone?

So reconciled,

Beyond recognition:

Bound by the bonds

Of unspoken tradition –

You noosed your own,

As life had shown.

*

You without voice

Lived within you:

You without hearing

Died in situ.

In circles we cycle

To the present day:

Motson mutters,

“More of the same.”

A strangled silence

Kills the strongest:

A life asking “why?”

Is certainly the longest –

Without real repose

As life slowly goes.

*

The ink runs dry,

Re-written thoughts:

All to ask now

Is the number of knots.

A family in tears,

The goalkeeper’s blunder:

While a peerless pro

Brings global wonder.

Before them both

There was only you:

A dangling example

Of what not to do –

With death no-one knows

(what pride would not show).


(here I try to relate the deaths of Gary Speed and Robert Enke with my father's)

Big Man's Grave

I went to see your grave today Big Man,
Noticing for the first time it's a shade of dark green,
Something that is typical of you,
You who would ooze green in abundance,
If you were to be cut open.

You left us years too early Big Man,
A light from our lives has gone,
It was extinguished far too prematurely,
And it now lives on only in our memories,
The good ones, not the bad one you left us with.

It took me a long while to find you Big Man,
Hidden amongst all the other people,
It's hard to believe that so many are dead,
It's even harder to believe that you are one of them,
It should never have been.

The time has come for me to leave you Big Man,
But I shall return again soon,
With tales of joyous victory or painstaking defeat,
For your beloved Celtic, as well as stories of my own life,
Stories that I know you play a big part in...

As I know I never walk alone,
You're spirit keeps a constant vigil by my side.