I have no Welsh blood
in me whatsoever,
so I will not cling to a team out of genetics
to make myself smile at their success;
even though I would love it dearly if they
against the odds
lifted a trophy that England
may have thought was theirs by some
divine football right.
However…
I did once date a wonderful girl
from Hunstanton who now
resides in Wales with a very loving wife,
I can
on a very clear day see beyond the shores
The snail upon my bathroom window,
I have no idea how you got there,
for did you fall from grace
or seagull’s beak, for surely
you never struggled, slimed your way
up the wall, fashioned by intrigue,
plotted and manoeuvred past your ability
to reach such dizzy heights;
you surely must have had help
to see beyond your narrow scope.
I understand if a seagull
or some other winged bird
spat you out because you tasted
off colour, blue, too raw, undercooked
Prime Ministers come and go,
just as England football managers
arrive and depart,
in failure,
in ignominy,
own goals, let down badly
by the team or driven man
with the lust for power
and glory.
The conveyor belt, unceasingly
brings along the next unsuitable candidate,
the fresh hope, wit and the beaming smile;
things will change,
I am sure,
under them.
The roar of the Wembley crowd,
replaced by time and poor results
for the hatred bestowed
upon black door number ten,
The air of
smugness,
or was it desperation
that hung on her lips
when she
plucked
the illusion, the lie
from the clouds whistling Dixie
above her head,
when she told the audience
there had been riots in Liverpool
in the last week
only served notice
that some people in all their fantasy
worlds should never be allowed
on or in close proximity to
television.
Ian D. Hall 2016
A last breathe that was not heard
on the other side of the world,
the Brazilian lion roared
in jungles,
carefree and to the full,
but I never heard the final bellow
of the beast, the growl of goodness
that would have rumbled underneath,
for on the other side of the world,
past oceans deep and proud
as your soul, as monumental
as your spirit which lifted
and touched through thick waves
and understanding…
I grow silent, I hear the news of the Lion’s
Is the pain worth the smile
that I find is on my tainted
and exhausted lips at two
in the morning, numb
having spoken for an hour,
throat dry despite the sips of water
I had taken through the evening;
my biggest and longest performance
at the tender age of forty-five
and one that made me stop
for a brief moment
when I consider that for thirty years
I was a coward, that I would not
and could not put myself up
to put myself forward;
What would I take with me
if you breathed your last tomorrow,
aside from memories, dashed and broken
now upon the storm, driven by despair,
what on Earth would I take
with me
as I searched in vain for you?
A wide open world with a single aim
to witness in the flesh
all that I could in the year
and a day I would allow myself
to exist in mourning, whilst blisters
tore at my back and festering wounds
bubbled and scorched at the edge
Walking through puddles, rain
soaked ends of trouser legs
that had swum gingerly
across the River Rae bridge,
the once gentle stream of summer’s past,
exhausted, dried out and the deposit
from long since removed factories
whose smoke deposits covered
the roof of our school
in a choking fit that came out in sympathy
with the janitor, puffing away after thirty fags,
this once gentle stream that I played Pooh
sticks in and examined the wild
life of insects copulating, woodlouse
turned over and then feeling guilty,
The fall of the house of fools,
all dead now, crushed under
the weight of expectancy
and dramatic insecurity,
was to be expected, for how is it possible
to keep a house above water
when you keep diverting the flow
and course; at some point
the foundations are always going
to cave in for the sand they are built upon,
will shift with the opinion
of those who rent the house.
Ian D. Hall 2016
Was it always like this?
Was it always such that we would
descend into a world of unethical treatment
of others just because we disagreed with them,
with their choices,
at the ballot box, that we would somehow lose
perspective, our senses in fair play
and be reduced to snarling, gutter tipped
wrench that makes our national
newspapers the epitome of self delusion
and intelligence harm;
was it always such, was it always the way,
that we could just be vile and get satisfaction from