Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

A quick one-two, a turn, a screaming shot
      Back off the post, a run through the defence
To knock it straight back in, and though we’ve not
      Yet touched the ball, we’re one-nil down against
A team whose youth and energy subdues us
And makes us feel a bunch of hopeless losers.

Because Methuselah’s too long to go
      On Third Division league and fixture lists
We play as Losers and/or Meths – as though
      We only lose because we’re always pissed!
There’s better teams than us made up of boozers,
And being sober’s no help to the Losers.

At least we are consistent; losing streaks
      Like ours take years and years of bloody training,
It’s hard to be this bad, you need technique;
      So please don’t get me wrong, we’re not complaining,
We do’t think being useless helps excuse us,
It’s just that practice makes us perfect losers!

You do not have to win to feel the buzz
      Of sweat, testosterone and self-display;
Part circus show (including clowns like us)
      Part theatre, part athletics, part ballet,
A game designed for gents that’s played by bruisers
Who are long past their prime (just like Meths Losers)

Who, stuck in check-out queues and traffic lights
      And meetings still replay the games we’ve played
On Sunday mornings or on Wednesday nights,
      The well-time tackles, passes, goals we’ve made,
The unrecorded triumphs which enthuse us
Enough to turn out weekly for the Losers.

I like defeat, its sweaty, human smell,
      Familiar as a much-replayed own goal
Or spannered shot; this losing fits me well
      (Just like our too-tight strip!) and on the whole
I think a winning sequence would confuse us,
At least you know just where you are with losers.

While those who can afford it, cheer success
      Via satellite TV and sponsors’ boxes,
On sweaty five-a-side courts we transgress
      The age’s most unbending orthodoxies:
To be the worst! The thought somehow renews us:
Down with success! And up with all the losers!

Not coming first’s an honourable aim
      When winning is the only Good; there’s pride
In coming last, in losing every game,
      In being always on the losing side.
The games we really should have won accuse us:
Success belongs to others, not to losers.

Let’s hear it then for those who’re past their best;
      Without us there would not be many winners,
We’re here to make the numbers up, the Rest,
      To teach the art of losing to beginners;
Their shiny, bright successes just amuse us,
For even winners have to play with losers.

So here’s to hopeless losers everywhere
      Who know we’re stuffed before we even start,
Who live with disappointment and despair,
      Who turn defeat into a kind of art;
An army of dissenters and refusers,
We’d change the world – if we weren’t such good losers!