poem

Matthew Gregory Transmissions

45. Maradona in the Azteca

A mustard-coloured car drags itself along the street
of a neighbourhood where spaces are oblong or square
then tails off into a blue garage where the engine
becomes asthmatic, kicks up, then peters out abruptly

and the man on the boiling leather waits to see if
his thoughts compose themselves after the kind of day
where thoughts are a group of white balloons
released loose and uncomprehending into the sky

and perhaps they do, because he steps out of the car
carefully with his yellow salesman's suit clean-pressed
 and leaves the engine that carries him around
 to head towards the bulge of white plum and magnolia

then down the little drive, to the bay window's edge
where inside, the television plays a slow Mexican wave
of businessmen and contrabandists and vendors
of Argentina who'll return later to circuits in the dust.


90. Zidane in the Stade de France

The young helper draws her troupe of school children
across the Champ de Mars, one sunburn after the other,
the trees and sky a stunning mix of crème de menthe,
and they reach the point where the Eiffel Tower is at its best

and the kids are awed for a moment, and then, not so much
as they return to fitful spans and fascinations,
whether their baseball caps peak up, sideways or back to front,
an oozing bag of eclairs, the weird bug in the grass

but one of the group, a boy in a faded t-shirt and shorts
trails behind his friends, to gaze alone at the Eiffel Tower
that in turn considers him, a quiet giant on long legs
about to stride across the Seine or reach an arm into heaven.


+ 30. Messi in the Camp Nou

The guy in the greasy t-shirt and his sunk-eyed girlfriend
sit in their little Ronda somewhere outside the city.
They've pulled up to watch storm clouds browse the tops
of the sand-coloured apartment blocks and basilicas,
the scrub and dust bristling with electricity in the darkness.
The couple begin to fumble. The girl deals with his belt
with her long fingernails, and tosses it carefully
                                                                 onto the backseat.
Somewhere an owl tunes into a mouse. The radio fizzes
in the dashboard with some shaky station from the capital,
where a loco commentator trips over his tongue
and ten thousand others lose their voices in the stadium.
Only the couple are listening as the dark cloud opens
and rolls like a limousine across Barcelona.
Static and announcements. There are bewildering figures.