Beating the Odds (With a Cricket Bat)

The life plan my counselor once made with me

Was to eat and excrete, and then die.

If Mick Jagger can't get any girl reaction,

Then how in the hell can I

Expect to find meaning, do something worthwhile,

Or even know pleasure and joy?

Stand me next to my idols; take a gander, a glance.

I'm a puppet who looks up to boys.

Yet I saw more in five years than some see in whole lives.

I've done things that some folks never do.

Perhaps this impression I've carved of myself

Is too based on a setback or two,

But I'm still on my feet and I'm back on two wheels,

Back with vengeance and vigor and vim,

Writing poems and notes for a novel or two,

Bending volumes and words to my whim.

Yes, I'm beating my odds with a cricket bat's flat,

and I'm hitting all sixes and fours.

If an unpublished poet hits some of his marks,

What's to stop you from hitting all yours?

Kaepernick Limerick

There once was a baller called Kap

Who sat down with his hands in his lap

While his teammates did stand,

To the ire of fans.

That's his job, which I'd say is a snap.

800 Days of Summer

In the last five years of “play ball!”

My Pirates have learned to stand tall.

Though I should be thankful, I'm appalled

To note, as the last of them turns to fall,

That they've yet to win anything Major at all.

Go Ahead, Give Me a Reason

When the only reason to get out of bed

Is the drive to work, that's a long day.

When the only reason to get out of bed

Is the drive to work, take the long way.

When the only reason to get out of bed

Is leaving, one month from now,

Then it's best to be running the time out

Quickly, but I don't really know how.

When a quarterback wants the time run out,

He kneels on the ground with the ball,

But I find that dull and cowardly.

I refuse to watch it at all.

Poorly Planned

I'm sure that same gameplan has served you for years,

Getting by on inconsistency, bailed out by tears,

But I've got a defense like you ain't seen before.

It might have worked then, but it won't anymore.

You need to learn when to go for it, when to punt.

You ran a draw on third and twenty.  You ain't getting what you want

For the first time, left tongue-still and mouth-agape.

Good luck next time.  I'm already studying tape.

Cap and Gown

I have too much more than what it takes to be a nihilist.

I haven't missed enough to see my life as meaningless,

Because if life is not the end, then it is still a test,

and better placements go to those who have performed the best.

Is that why high-school style drama follows us around?

I think that life's the minor leagues. We'll get sent up or down.

When the phone rings, we climb in, we ship out, underground.

We ought to bury folks in some sort of cap, and a gown.

Pulled

When I was young I had no empathy for ancient Orpheus.

I never understood how it was a man could miss

One person to becoming universally bereft,

But I think I understand now. Ever since the day I left,

I've thought of you occasionally, and once I wished you'd call,

But I'll go nuts in five more minutes if I can't watch some baseball.

Your 2014 Pittsburgh Pirates

Last season, they won despite doubts,

'Til Divisionals, where they bowed out.

Still, their moves this offseason

Sure defy any reason.

A step back? What's that all about?

World The Football

A wing cocked his foot back, intending to strike

A ball in the corner with all his leg's might

A little over ninety minutes into the match,

But there was only a corner flag for his foot to catch,

and at that point did a tie game turn into a sleeper –

Four four minutes a center back squatted down to play groundskeeper,

Wasting minutes of once-wasted time before the game could end.

It was almost as bizarre as my weekend.

No Love Without the Glove

I know that I am a fan, not a player.

I know that the catches I make with it

Don't make me anything other than mediocre,

and I know that it doesn't make any sense

To take it everywhere I go.

I know that Honus Wagner never had one just like it.

I just like it.

Conservative Playcalling vs. the Quick-Kick

I've watched the clock

Spin my workday

In endless concentric circles.

I've marked time to the end

Of many an elective class.

I've gone into halftime

With a four-touchdown lead,

and run the clock out to the end,

But never before had I chosen

To run out the clock on a relationship.

Just Don't Over-Oil It

In the wrong hands, it is soft and smooth.

In better hands, it feels like a notebook

An old one, the cover soaked in butter,

Knowledge and natural smoothness,

What I once thought love would be,

What I wish I could be.

In the right hands, it only feels like nirvana,

Universal truth.

Oddly Enough, Made from an Herbivore's Skin...

Flexible and supple in its cocoa skin,

What a beautiful, powerful predator,

and clever.

It merely sits back and waits

For its round, white, faster prey,

and once the predator finds its spot,

Prey has an odd tendency to fall into the jaws.

...But Horsehide Does Not Smell White

Leather even smells brown,

Bashfully, perhaps, but big,

Not like the dirt, the earth,

Which is everywhere beneath us

and hardly smells brown at all.

Why I Write, Part x+220: Maunder

My fingers maunder over keys

Or pen and page, which'er I please,

On pathless paths, in time's due course,

'Tween dusty, distant metaphors,

Or, if lonely lusts irony, then I bring together,

With whapping and womping, my horsehide and leather.

I suspect my doctor'd think it best

To give my restlessness a rest.

13 inches – Superior design – full grain leather

I do not, as the rule, use the word “love,”

But in this case, a cow gave its life

(and did not save its hide),

Several strangers in the Philippines gave their time,

and an unlikely row of sewing machines

Gave needles and whirrs and an overworked wheeze,

and now, when we play rough, you sound like perfection.

You're just (in)animate enough for a connection.

Strike Two

I sweat and scream and sigh

and love every minute of every headache.

It's partly my fault for falling in love

With a beautiful paradox

That is an individual sport and a team game.

A House Is Made Home

Every part of a house is made home by some sport.

At homes, driveways become basketball courts.

Starting from one end, the yard is a diamond.

If you start from the other, it becomes a gridiron.

The garage door's second fold can crossbar a hockey cage.

The den, when folks are gone, is a dodgeball...shooting range?

The porch-rails are the faces on which little climbers climb,

The living room and couches are terrain where cats hunts mice.

Any room that's got a wall in it becomes a handball court.

They say home is where the heart is; I say home's where we keep score.

The Old Home Remedy for Postmodernism

Bottom of the ninth.

Bases are loaded. Two outs.

The three-two fastball...

On The Way Into the Ballpark

I always get lost on the way into the ballpark,

Somewhere between the gravel and the saplings

and the stand that sells food for my heart

(Which, in fact, is a ticket to a baseball game).

At least, I get lost in the relative sense–

Is the car right or left of here? Could a foul ball hit it?

I do, of course, always find my way back again,

and I know where I am in the absolute sense–where I belong.

In that sense, it's anyplace else that I am lost.