I’d hoped to make the team;
up and coming sport,
beating the Ruskies,
it’d be really something
top international status.
I could see it all,
overlapping circles,
blue and green, yellow;
red and black;
bold statements
against prepared backgrounds;
hush, expectancy, and then
the roar; ecstatic flags
all over the stands;
turning to lift my fists in
victory;
media-hype;
commentators, interviews,
cameras, zoom lenses,
lingering close-ups of hands and
wrists
poised for snappy action;
taut muscles, angled thumb –
controlled, concentrated,
nerved to win;
nails honed and polished
to careful, rounded curves,
strong, flexible –
the end results
of months of planning;
training schedules,
controlled calcium-rich diets,
lanolin massages,
specialists,
steam baths,
punishing self-sacrifice;
agonising last-minute checks
for rule-infringements -
too long? too short?
Out with the calipers, tapes;
anxieties and pre-match tension;
Great Britain’s major challenge,
I’d hoped to make the team
bring home a gold,
beat the old world records -
two metre flips,
free-style pot-shots,
synchronised squapping.
But the dream died -
half an hour ago.
Wretched kids played Ludo,
wrecked my high performance,
carbon-fibre,
silicone-coated disks,
scratched the high-tech surface.
Can’t afford another set;
quality sports gear’s beyond me,
priced itself out,
right out of the amateur market;
sponsorship’s not on.
Never qualify now, not me,
not for the Barcelona Olympics;
never climb the rostrum,
snivel with a stiff upper lip
through God Save the Queen
(out of a can).
Still, what the hell -
I’m a herb tea fan
so what price the urine test?
I’d probably tiddle my winks
and squap myself,
be publicly stripped.
But I did want my gold tiddlywink
for Tiddlywinks -
for Britain...
(October,
1988)
