Artists in Our Midst

Justin whittles strikers’ chins and shins
composing and conducting Barnes’ defence
while Bosh and Bolly mould and sculpt the play,
Rodin and Michelangelo in stripes.

The Bagatelle Boys, Newey, Croft,
Toner and Till, work lines
as taut and tight as Leonardo’s -
Ciaran’s feet tapping, sliding,
shuffling like Flatley’s
while a local Nijinski waits to take point
and spring in the wings as Jonah climbs
and pirouettes like Melville’s whale.

Macca, the master, casts a valedictory eye
across the Park’s old canvas where Reddy and Rankin
take up paint and brush in injury time
and Thomas Pinault plays a ghostly pierrot.