Kick Off O'Clock (my Poem) - share your experience

[Storm52]

Before the ball moves
everyone stands.

All those voices
belonging to the same sound
for a moment.

Then the whistle.
Then the world divides again
into those who want
opposite things.

For a few seconds there
we were only people
watching together.

It passes so quickly
you almost miss it
if you are already shouting.

[QuietNomad]

Before the ball moves everyone stands - opening with that image sets up the whole poem. The stillness before the division

[Wizard]

The form is very clean. Short lines, no waste, each stanza doing exactly one thing. The restraint suits the subject

[Caitlin_69]

For a few seconds there we were only people watching together is the line that makes this more than a football poem. That brief collective moment before the tribal split is something everyone who has watched a game in a crowd has felt without being able to name it

[WaveFunction30]

The world divides again into those who want opposite things is elegant. Football as a microcosm of everything that normally separates people, made safe by its containment within 90 minutes

[Ryan65]

It passes so quickly you almost miss it if you are already shouting is a beautiful closing movement. The people most invested in the outcome are the ones least able to experience the unified moment