GOALKEEPER
GOALKEEPER
You joined us in the last days of January
Some good years ago, say over three decades
Your departure left the other team in fury
That even after thirty years their joy still fades;
Your arrival however made our team too merry
As we hoped for a shift from tails to heads.
You had a fertile beginning, just like loam
Your story's been told since you were eighteen
Too many medals you've been taking home
Man of the match for years you've been
You've been to cities larger than Rome
So all your riches all of us have seen.
It's bad news you once ignored a landing ball
Were you anger-driven since defenders were few,
Or you assert you just weren't strategically tall?
Well, many of us saw in you a pretending Jew;
We admitted their goal and mourned our fall
Though we kept quiet, for to us you were new.
When bit by bit your performance deteriorated
We trained your counterpart in the Second Eleven
Knowing fully that you'd one day get exhausted
And need a substitute, for the paths not trodden
So we waited for your agreement to get terminated
The five-year contract you signed—five, not seven.
The news headline hit us in a surprising format—
"Goalkeeper to Stay for Five More Years!"
"What!" shouted all as each of us spat
For many of us didn't at first trust our ears.
"Hell, come take the devil and set us apart!"
We all did scream, eyes wet with rolling tears.
We failed to discern the physiognomy of the trick
And the logic behind the five-more-years stuff
We only mocked your stay as time rose up the wick
Now that it's enough, we won't once again laugh
This time the heaping fives will reach their peak
And you'll have to learn that everyone's tough.
Goalkeeper, even books say you're turning old
So all the tired players say you should pack
We had only felt too shy to be bold
That even if you leave, we the ten could still attack;
Your other secrets we don't want to unfold
Hurry, pack, go, before the box develops a crack.
© Abiney Kitooke