Passing beauty: poem
January 10, 2023
Passing beauty It's moving, just ahead of the player's most clever feet. Every four years, we fill a cup, then pour it out, a month of dreams. Was it just last week that Bergkamp flicked with orange elegance, side-footing space and time? No, he is long gone now, off fielding fifty years. Others follow. Messy time melts beauty, remoulds it, casts it always anew. It never ages, constantly fired, as we fade, we watchers, yesterday's players, passing. Twenty sips at the cup will fill a lifetime; held safe in keeper's hands. PS Cottier This football poem was first published in Eureka Street, and then in broadsheet (New Zealand), no 13, Special World Cup football issue, 2014. Finally (before today!) in Boots, a new edition of Mark Pirie’s 2014 football poetry anthology, 2017. I refuse to look up how old the Dutch player Bergkamp is now! I am not the only one still suffering minor withdrawal symptoms after the end of the World Cup. Great to see Argentina win, and the pun on the word 'messy' in my poem is deliberate. I am very much looking forward to the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this year.
Image Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Tuesday poem: Passing Beauty from Boots
August 22, 2017
Passing beauty
It’s moving, just ahead
of the player’s most clever feet.
Every four years, we fill a cup,
then pour it out, a month of dreams.
Was it just last week that Bergkamp
flicked with orange elegance,
side-footing space and time?
No, he is long gone now,
off fielding fifty years.
Others follow. Messy time
melts beauty, remoulds it,
casts it always anew.
It never ages, constantly fired,
as we fade, we watchers,
yesterday’s players, passing.
Twenty sips at the cup
will fill a lifetime;
held safe in keeper’s hands.
PS Cottier
This poem was just republished in Boots:A Selections of Football Poetry 1890-2017, edited by Mark Pirie of New Zealand. As Mark has it up as an sample from the book, I thought I would also republish it here. It was first published in Eureka Street here in Australia.
The book contains poems from New Zealand, England, France and the Netherlands, with New Zealand being the home of most. It is well worth reading for the diversity of approaches: biographical, political, elegiac (mine, for once!) humorous and historical. A lovely present for anyone interested in football.
It can be ordered through Lulu through the publisher’s website (HeadworX Publishers). Boots is an expanded edition of a previous collection first published in 2014.
Tuesday poems: Linky linky
June 3, 2014
No poem as such today. I am going down to Melbourne soon for the launch of The Stars Like Sand and am finding it hard to write at the mo.
However I recently had a hat trick of poems up at Eureka Street.
And, to continue the sporting metaphors, I scored a goal with a poem being included in the special World Cup edition of the New Zealand publication broadsheet. The poem, ‘Passing beauty’ was originally published at Eureka Street, and then in my second-prize-winning book The Cancellation of Clouds, which can be purchased from Ginninderra Press. Australia’s draw in the World Cup is (cough) perhaps (cough) somewhat difficult (hysterical laughter). We face Spain, The Netherlands and Chile. (Giggle.)
And, having linked more times than a golfer, she puts away clubs, balls big and balls small, and retires to the gym for a bit of metal.
Here are the launch posters, for the last time.
Now, some Tuesday poets will have original poems, and some will have old ones. Check them out. Put down those barbells, meat-head, and click this feather:
PS Cottier 