Number 98, What next?

What next?

The games are over, all is done,
All the medals now are won.
Everybody can relax,
As slowly people turn their backs.

The lime light fades, the athletes learn
To other things the cameras turn,
Their moment in the sun has gone,
And training now goes on and on..

Just like it did so long before,
Day in day out for four years more,
Until in Rio once again,
They’ll have another chance to reign.

But there is no-one who’ll forget,
This summer’s successes I’ll bet...
Even though my wife tells me,
That come tomorrow wait and see...

Anti-climax, nothing left,
Back to work, feeling bereft;
There is nothing we can do,
Our excitement to renew.

Doesn’t matter what they say,
It’s propaganda anyway;
Hyping up the British thing,
Is nothing more than marketing.

There is nothing anyone,
Can do to make it run and run;
Just like every games before,
We’ll all be feeling slightly sore.

Venues crumbling, rarely used,
Dark and grey, the lights all fused,
Buyers absent, nothing doing,
Frustrated investors suing.

No new jobs, degeneration,
Slipping backwards, with the nation
Into yet another session,
Of a treble dip recession.

But with her I disagree,
We argue sometimes, her and me;
And suddenly next thing I hear,
Another lot of British cheer...

No sooner had they all packed up,
A Scottish chap has won a cup;
Andy Murray’s gone and done it;
The US open, now he’s won it.

Sadly though my wife is right,
What I heard the very next night;
England, Scotland, Ulster, Wales,
Football regularly fails!


© Stephen Saunders