StarPoet Newsletter Vol. X, No. XIX

Red tail working the Pentagon
-- Crows in hot pursuit --
Soaring on the winds of the Potomac
On a cool spring afternoon.

Outside the grassy knolls
-- green berms of careful design --
The breeze swirls around the legs
Of the women in line for buses.

The line divides by men and women
-- Equal parts civilian and military --
Cars escape south from Washington,
Slowing to a stop just this side of Springfield.

The diesel fumes of freshly painted buses
Fill our lungs and burning eyes,
Springtime along the rivers in Virginia,
Waiting for the summer to begin.

This continuity
Will come to an end,
My human body
Will cease to exist;
Now I won't remember
How it was to be alive,
I'll be dead and gone,
Six feet underground,
Don't give it no never mind.

This island universe
Won't always be here,
This planet Earth
Will be a burnt crisp sphere;
No one will remember
The ape who stood upright,
We'll be dead and gone,
Our bones like rock,
Don't give it no never mind

At the stadium,
The only one that counts,
The grass is greener
And the earth is rolled
Into preternatural smoothness.

In the ballpark,
Spacetime moves
At its own petty pace,
Ghosts roam the outfield,
Shadows walk the dugouts
Still searching for
The perfect piece of ash.

We play this game for ourselves,
In memory of Ruth and Gehrig
And all those others
Who dared come before us.

In my eyes,
Mays still races back in centerfield
After a high kick fastball by Marichal,
Sandy Koufax strikes out the Yankees
While McCovey bombs Don Drysdale
And Walter Johnson is the best of them all.

The past is in the record book,
The future is an unknown sea,
Today the batter still faces the pitcher
For a chance at immortality
And a memory we'll all argue about
Decades from now around our stoves.

The TV loses the feel of the ballpark,
The smell of chili dogs and over-priced beer,
The thrill of reaching to catch a foul ball,
The smile on a child who has one.

The camera misses the cheering crowd
Rooting for the home team to rally
And the lout in the seat six rows up,
Shouting for the visitors to win.

The gods are quite distant on television,
The ballplayers intimate from the stands;
The interplay in the dugout, the shifting
Of the fielders, cannot be found on a sofa.

Give me a ball park, open air and the sun,
And the comradery of Americans drinking beer
And carrying on; let's argue the merits
Of our home team and the dubious paternity
Of that blind numbskull crouching behind home.

Play ball, I say, play ball!

The world outside smells like rain,
The pollen on the car has spotted,
But no sign exists on plant or planet.

Sheet lightning rattles vaguely in the distance,
It's rumble a subconscious diversion,
The air is thick with anticipation a half past
The sun's most recent exit, but no rain,
Not yet, and maybe not tomorrow.

Going back, looking back,
Is part of a poet's must do:
Sometimes only this morning,
Sometimes what happened yesterday.

A poet must source her lines
    From the fabric of her life,
Pulling at the threads to unravel meaning
And the common stain of our humanity
That connects the realities of existence.

Cool morning, hazy sky,
Less than LA,
More than Grand Teton,
The blue-brown side effect
Of burning camp fires
Heavily seasoned
With industrial ingenuity
And combustive pleasure.

Six billion, seven,
Will we make ten
Before the world
Comes crashing
Down again?

Fleas, air travel,
And human sewage
Plague our half-
Thought intentions.

I hear an engine workin',
Workin' out in back,
Runnin' past my backyard,
Humpin' cars all night.

The rail line's always busy,
Switchin' cars away,
Carryin' freight and passengers
North and South all day.

It ain't all that romantic
When you're tryin' to get some sleep,
But that old train keeps a movin'
Down that mainline steel.

1

Red Tail Hawk on the way to the ball game,
A good omen for the Nationals
Or just another unrelated black swan
Out searching for Sunday dinner?
Her raptor skillset needs but a little luck.

2.

Spring leafed trees along the rail lines,
That color less than green but more than a yellow;
Down within the wash, fragments of human existence:
Rusted grocery carts standing quietly ready,
Fading blankets tenting between strong limbs.

3.

Mallard swimming the Potomac River,
Bobbing up and down on the wake of a power boat;
University sculls, eight rowers and a coxswain,
Sweep-oar rowing against each other and the current;
Later they will retire with the loser buying beer.

4.

The wind at the ballpark gusts to twenty-five,
Pulling a chill off the waters of the tidal basin
That winds both clockwise and counter around the stadium
As an overcast April sky makes like it was March,
A full month before the Nationals start losing.