Game Ball Poem by Jerry Buckley

It's out there now; soggy on the sprinkler soaked lawn.
What was once a nearly bursting bladder is now near totally deflated.
The red, white, and blue octagonal panels, scratched and sorely faded.

At a Major Indoor Soccer fixture, this was our 'official' ball.
Was flummoxed in frenzied and frantic mania, as the stadium clock expired:
another anti-climax, another loosing season, a dozen dreams retired.

For a time it was kept up - displayed on a shelf - then was cloistered,
in my closet - forsaken and forgotten - a moth-balled memory,
out of sight and out of mind; the keepsake of a referee.

Shame on me, that with time's passage - neglect of vigilance and care -
my souvineer devolved into a muggle, just a kick around ball for boys,
it now wallows in a backyard puddle, just another of my children's toys.

No, my game ball wasn't autographed; wasn't guarded under glass;
but it was coaxed across those magic carpets by Stan the Pizza Man,
and bannana-bent free-kicked into play, by our dashing Yil Orhan

Too ugly now, insists my wife, to bring that thing inside!
With no cause to fault the boys at play, oblivious to any claim,
that called to mind a time and place, when everybody knew my name.

No lo contendera; mea culpa! I admit the blame lies on me.
Despite my attempts write it off, there is no rhyme or reason,
such a souvineer should thus be squandered, my keepsake of a swan song season.

So the deeper into the game it goes, the more I miss those nights;
when I was the man in the middle, the whistle fit between my fingers;
the clock's incessant tic-tic-ticking: since time for no man lingers.

'Voice of One' @ Jerry Buckley