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Saturday 11 August 2012

JOE-T LAUREATE'S OLYMPICS, 2012

Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, published her poem about the Olympic Games and I thought as Joe-t Laureate, I would have a go, nodding here and there to Duffy's themes.......


Spring and summer were crap,
then through a gap, a stunt-Queen
parachutes to the Olympic Games,
towards commoners and famous names.

We begin, we prepare to lose or win.


We speak all-sorts here,
the real-Queen's English and other stuff,
spouted by all classes and scroats,
from Land's End to John O'Groats,
from here, there and everywhere,
from around the world they came to share.

We make way for the bandwagons of VIPs
corporate giants, gold diggers and glory seekers,
but, hats off, all hail Lord Sebastian & Co
for a start-to-finish spectacular show,


We cheer gold, we cheer silver, we cheer bronze,
we cheer poster girls and boys and volunteers,
we shout and scream, we drop the Nation's jaw,
looking at the miraculous impossible in absolute awe.

Anthems and tears, dreams realised and dashed,
a spirit to cherish, momentum to burn,
in a Games together, in a world on its knees,
to hell with austerity, we want legacies.


We want parks and tracks, playing fields galore,
otherwise what's the point, what's it been for,
we want swimming pools, velodromes, canals for canoes,
and the next generation in faster running shoes.

We want six-pack bodies and side-burned faces,
we want inspiration, grind and hard-work sweat,
we want more of the highest, the fastest, the strongest,
we want to challenge who can survive the longest.


We were altogether witnesses to the execution, 
the beheading of the recession's giant of doom,
we sense in a sense its not all pounds and pence,
we have a chance, so beware Monday morning's gloom.

Spring and summer were crap, until the Games,
old heroes, new heroes, we know all their names,
we have a chance for the future, to get off our ass,
but not if we take our foot off the gas.






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