Football, some people snark;
it’s just twenty-two people kicking
a bag of air around a park,

and with a wave of the hand
haughtily dismiss
the most popular sport in the land,

with all its elation and despair,
science and passion,
its tactics, artfulness and flair;

its grit and fight and dare
subterfuge and disappointment –
all human life is there.

If they’re right – if sport’s a silly caper –
hitting balls, running round tracks;
then by that measure, books are only paper;

writing is marks on a page;
the Sistine Chapel, paint on a wall;
Shakespeare, folk talking on a stage;

Mozart, noises from a band;
a Bugatti, a box on wheels;
and the Pyramids are piles of bricks, built on sand.

And performance poetry? – some idiot, standing alone,
reading doggerel
to patient people, through a microphone.

*