Roger McGough: Balloon Fight

  'This morning, the American, Steve Fossett, ended his Round-The-World
    balloon fight...I'm sorry, balloon "flight"...in northern India.'
        - The Today Programme, Radio 4, 20 January 1997

 It ended in Uttar Pradesh.
 It had to.
 You can't go around the world
 attacking people with balloons
 and expect to get away with it.

 What may be mildly amusing
 at children's parties
 in Upper Manhattan
 will not seem so funny ha ha
 on the Falls Road.

 How Fossett fought his way
 across the former Yugoslavia
 I'll never know.
 Some folk never grow up.
 Hang on to their childhood.

 Believing in the Tooth Fairy,
 watched over by the Man in the Moon.
 Thank you, Mr Newsreader,
 for bringing him down to earth.
 For bursting his balloon.