I feel like I should start doing something like "Poetry Tuesdays" (or Wednesdays, or Thursdays, or whatever). Any input?
Baseball and Writing
(Suggested by post-game broadcasts)
Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement--
a fever in the victim--
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
To whom does it apply?
Who is excited? Might it be I?
It's a pitcher's battle all the way--a duel--
a catcher's, as, with cruel
puma paw, Elston Howard lumbers lightly
back to plate. (His spring
de-winged a bat swing.)
They have that killer instinct;
yet Elston--whose catching
arm has hurt them all with the bat--
when questioned, says, unenviously,
"I'm very satisfied. We won."
Shorn of the batting crown, says, "We";
robbed by a technicality.
When three players on a side play three positions
and modify conditions,
the massive run need not be everything.
"Going, going . . . " Is
it? Roger Maris
has it, running fast. You will
never see a finer catch. Well . . .
"Mickey, leaping like the devil"--why
gild it, although deer sounds better--
snares what was speeding towards its treetop nest,
one-handing the souvenir-to-be
meant to be caught by you or me.
Assign Yogi Berra to Cape Canaveral;
he could handle any missile.
He is no feather. "Strike! . . . Strike two!"
Fouled back. A blur.
It's gone. You would infer
that the bat had eyes.
He put the wood to that one.
Praised, Skowron says, "Thanks, Mel.
I think I helped a little bit."
All business, each, and modesty.
Blanchard, Richardson, Kubek, Boyer.
In that galaxy of nine, say which
won the pennant? Each. It was he.
Those two magnificent saves from the knee-throws
by Boyer, finesses in twos--
like Whitey's three kinds of pitch and pre-
diagnosis
with pick-off psychosis.
Pitching is a large subject.
Your arm, too true at first, can learn to
catch your corners--even trouble
Mickey Mantle. ("Grazed a Yankee!
My baby pitcher, Montejo!"
With some pedagogy,
you'll be tough, premature prodigy.)
They crowd him and curve him and aim for the knees. Trying
indeed! The secret implying:
"I can stand here, bat held steady."
One may suit him;
none has hit him.
Imponderables smite him.
Muscle kinks, infections, spike wounds
require food, rest, respite from ruffians. (Drat it!
Celebrity costs privacy!)
Cow's milk, "tiger's milk," soy milk, carrot juice,
brewer's yeast (high-potency--
concentrates presage victory
sped by Luis Arroyo, Hector Lopez--
deadly in a pinch. And "Yes,
it's work; I want you to bear down,
but enjoy it
while you're doing it."
Mr. Houk and Mr. Sain,
if you have a rummage sale,
don't sell Roland Sheldon or Tom Tresh.
Studded with stars in belt and crown,
the Stadium is an adastrium.
O flashing Orion,
your stars are muscled like the lion.
Belatedly (blame Irene), yes, of course!
ReplyDeleteMaybe with a line or two on what you like about the selected poem? Or maybe just let it speak for itself.
Am I allowed to quote back?
I will, without waiting for permission, but tell me if this kind of thing is too long, for future reference.
My current-favorite baseball poem (not that I have many favorite baseball poems):
The City, by Robert Pinsky
I live in the little village of the present
But lately I forget my neighbors' names.
More and more I spend my days in the City:
The great metropolis where I can hope
To glimpse great spirits as they cross the street,
Souls durable as the cockroach and the lungfish.
When I was young, I lived in a different village.
We had parades, the circus, the nearby fort.
And Rabbi Gewirtz invented a game called "Baseball."
To reach first base you had to chant two lines
Of Hebrew verse correctly. Mistakes were outs.
One strike for every stammer or hesitation.
We boys were thankful for the Rabbi's grace,
His balancing the immensity of words
Written in letters of flame by God himself
With our mere baseball, the little things we knew...
Or do I remember wrong, did we boys think
(There were no girls) that baseball was the City
And that the language we were learning by rote--
A little attention to meaning, now and then--
Was small and local. The major leagues, the City.
One of the boys was killed a few years later,
Wearing a uniform, thousands of miles away.
He was a stupid boy: when I was captain,
If somehow he managed to read his way to first,
I never let him attempt the next two lines
To stretch it for a double. So long ago.
Sometimes I think I've never seen the City,
That where I've been is just a shabby district
Where I persuade myself I'm at the center.
Or: atrocities, beheadings, mass executions,
Troops ordered to rape and humiliate-- the news,
The Psalms, the epics-- what if that's the City?
Gewirtz, he told us, means a dealer in spices.
Anise and marjoram used for embalming corpses,
For preserving or enhancing food or drink:
The stuff of civilization, like games and verses.
The other night, I dreamed about that boy,
The foolish one who died in the course of war:
He pulled his chair up so he faced the wall.
I wanted him to read from the prayer-book.
He didn't answer-- he wouldn't play the game.
Amaryllis, I love when you post poems. This was wonderful. :)
ReplyDeleteI think sometimes I'd like to say something when I post a poem, and other times I like to let it stand alone.
This one I liked because I play baseball. Or, well, I try, anyway--I have an injured shoulder, so I haven't been playing a whole lot this season.