Cod Almighty | Article

by Alistair Wilkinson

3 September 2025

It's the power you feel when you get a taste of the glory. Al Wilkinson, the Pontoon's poet in residence, feels thunder in his heart and the hand of history on his pen as those magnificent Mariners act as his muse again, to amuse again.

Town 2 United 2
Town win 12-11 after penalties
Ruben Amorim: "We look completely lost. I’m sorry." (27/08/2025)

After Manchester United
We're not dreaming anymore.
Hard head stirs on a soft pillow,
Body stretches,
Feet sliding over warm sheets,
Catching the soft fleece of the blanket,
Feeling the sweet aches - young memories,
old knees - of the night before.
Remembering.

From the bedroom window: the sun shines,
Traffic rolls sedately.
Pedestrians, kids and bikes, dogs, pad the paths.
There is no breath of wind.
The weather app says storms later,
But now it's quiet, blanket smooth and warm,
Toy Story clouds watch the town below;
A unicorn calm after last night’s storm.
Impossible.

A clock ticks. How does it not know?
Time and light, the only constants,
Are constant now, but how? The hand
Of eternity pointed to that moment and
Moved on, swept away a million sensations,
2ps cascading in an arcade coinfall. Fistfuls
Of memories grabbed at, stuffed into pockets
And held tight even as time and light moved on.
Ridiculous.

Last night, Time called the storm
To come see the Town.
It came, black clouds rolling, boiling,
White eyes flashing, teeth grinning,
Saw the scoreboard, asked who scored,
Black clouds rolling, boiling again,
White eyes and teeth flashing again,
As he laughed deep in his throat,
A growl of pleasure, a release of rain
Come to drown the Devils' summer,
Come to deliver the trawler's steel kiss.
Outrageous.

The storm raged against Time.
More! he demanded, and,
Like a poor guest or
The impetuous son of an immortal,
He drove recklessly across the sky, crashing
To earth on the Humber bank, smashing
Into Blundell Park, roaring, tipping
His rain as if he would yoke Time
And hold it in cloud-black, lightning-white embrace.
And that flicker of impediment
Stretched Time to kick after kick. 12-11.
Unthinkable.

Exhausted, the storm fell into us, thrilled
Main, Osmond, Findus and Pontoon.
Time, relieved that his guest was gone,
Opened four sides of an east coast square
And we poured onto that green, floodlit field,
Thousands of fans with four shadows each,
Thousands of shadows reaching around
Blundell Park, out into the town and
Across the world, an embrace for all,
All holding to this team, this club, this
Moment, the warmth of our limbs' shadows
A sweet touch for the world.
Marvellous.

From the bedroom window: the leaves
Are already yellowing after this dry summer.
They hang limp as if waiting for more,
Or just waiting to hear again last night's score.
They're yellow and green and the sky is so blue,
A perfect frame for the black of the roof slates,
And the skylights, the white of the eaves,
The fascias. Black and white, shadow and light
In vivid colour.

There is no breath of wind. Time and light move on.
The weather app tells me there are storms later.