They used to moan about him in the slips,

High up in the gods at Covent Garden.

(These were the ones who queued to buy returns.)

‘He wouldn’t do the lifts,’ was their complaint.

‘He’s no longer what he was,’ they exclaimed.

I never saw him there, just the B-team,

But watched him dance at the Coliseum

And then some years afterwards in Brussels:

Mid-Forties and no longer in his prime.

Even then, you shuddered at the power,

The haughtiness and masculine appeal.

A complicated artist, just as when

Sprinting at the airport to his freedom

Or bending to his last, diminished bow.