ALL RESPONSES |
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(Scene i)
I wish my father would die
in Kansas City, rather than Chippewa Falls
That way, I would not have to listen
to the ticking of his watch as he is ripping
the IV out of his arm, screaming at me
to get the hell out of his room, spraying
blood over his white sheets like abstract art
I am your son, I shout; I pray the last thing
you see is me; why does this not register
with you? I consider how many days
I’ve wasted waiting to be forgiven
for something I’m not even sure I did
It is like waiting to answer a phone ringing
at two in the morning: a profound threat
someone has died whether you answer it or not
(Scene ii)
When he finally falls asleep,
I pull out his father’s picture
from his wallet and really look
hard into grandpa’s blue eyes,
looking for some reason why
my father never seems to smile
(Scene iii)
It’s a hospital, I keep telling myself:
sirens never stop
Normal people must be out there
somewhere, waiting for the day
to bring them something
All these hours are strewn about
like loose sticks, none of which
I can make use of
I’m like an angry child
dreaming of the day I can grow
up and be something more
than angry
(Scene iv)
Even though I have long arms,
and could easily reach over
the silver bars of his bed,
his head is sagging;
an autograph is out
of the question
(Scene v)
Bill, the mortician guy, has been
here three times already,
picking up other folks
He’s the same guy who picked
up mother back in 1999
If I were in Kansas City,
I wouldn’t care
who showed up
Anyway, it’s his turn now;
time for me to step aside |
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Today is Sunday, the day we chose
to dig weeds out of the garden,
to water the plants,
to hold each other, not so gently, in the warm darkness of the sunroom
while the boys are at the ball game; we will leave outlines on the walls,
your shoulder marks, pressed purposefully to remind you of me,
like dry leaves on a favorite page of a Neruda book
or the tattoo I carry on my left shoulder, with your name on it; my almost angry touch the result of days, or months, I confess
of lack of poetry, in myself; of lack of myself, in all of you.
Still, it is Sunday,
and the smoke of the big city buses, the horn of the cars
the winds of May, can not ruin the perfect music of your skin,
your sounds like the memories of summer storms under rain forest canopies, when wet earth cools the steam of a togetherness that seldom comes. If this day was our every day, our lives would be different,
the tears caressing your neck would no longer carry the reality of longing. If there was a ball game every day, life would be home run.
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A bowed head may
Pray for peace
Cry for love
Hide a tear
Read a book
Die in a noose
Sleep in class
Fish for dinner
Pee on the ground
Reaching hands narrow it down
He writes truth
On a ball |
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The outstretched hand, its pointing fingers
switch easily from accusation to giving
direction or even play: making a rabbit’s
shadow ears. A head, for all its genius,
is limited to nodding and shaking. But
the fingers, nimble creatures, the fingers
talk apart from words. A fore finger pushed
into your chest ain’t a sign of love, Bub.
Je t’acuse! is often followed by a firing squad,
sweatily close is the sting in a lashing tongue
and the preacher’s wagging finger. No
cashmere “come here.” Not for chickens
the finger that discretely wipes a tear
from the eye and pushes the nub down on paper. |
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Logan, Slave 21 Why did you run?
said the Green Mile
A man's got to know his limitaitons.
Logan's Just hand turning color
Plantation red,
flashing.
I'll give you one more chance to run one for the money, two for
the go, three to get ready, click, for crying out loud!
reloading, siren blaring, Don't run.
You just have wait till the sparks fly, my militia will be with
you with their Bats and clubs of regalia waiving asking "What does
the World mean of you?" ash flicks from our cigarettes
the states will be lit with the action Jackson of fire, a mile
high falling, flying, Waiving, blaring!"
All are welcome to the end,
lets level it off now and play upon the field and what's to come.
Forever it is going to be. I'll remember your rookie card,
when just 21,
my lil gang and me,
we'll all sign it
from Joe, from atop of the World Trade Towers, Caught in flight,
with best regards for our Bazookas and Bubblegum.
reloading, Logan, why did you run. |
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See you’ve painted me into a corner
But we’ve no brushes you say
You tell me I’m the one with 10 talents
Use them---remember what happens
to buried talents you say
I know the fire and the gnashing
but 10 are not, never enough
I say this corner is mine now
and so is the time my own
I am taking it to what’s next
neither meadow ripe bird world nor
that lava field with daisies
I’ve forgotten more times
than gulls cross the flight path
how to go easy
in a world tipped toward red
all the drama of an imperfect heart
that scarlet flower organ
hidden in my underground store house
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The beginning of each day brings observers
that ask for this and that
as if you have nothing better to do
than answer questions with actions |
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If my signature was a document it would make more sense
to scrabble for it -- to fight like knaves --
but this is not a ladies scarf thrown as future plumage
this is only the writ, the law, that a name is worth everything. |
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Keep it steady, head empty
zen-state zen-state zen-state
SWING
and fuck it all not even close
wicked slider so I back out the box,
back it out
scratch the fucking dirt
maybe there's a hit down there
I can kick it out of the dirt
clear the head and wait it's 1and 2 and
dumbass me hasn't had
a hit since tuesday
may never hit again
dumfuck dumfuck
pitcher quit twitching and get on the rubber
bet its a fastball away, what
I'd do if I were pitching to me,
dumfuck, clear the head
zen-state zen-state zen-state
arm back shoulder in ball released
what the, SWING and
just a fucking piece that time looked like
a shithead like what that kid said I was
bastard kid even as I'm signing
the fucking ball he's
calling me a stiff saying I took all that money
and don't give a damn now
c'mon pitcher get back the fuckin'
mound, kick the dirt --
zen-state zen-state zen-state
took all that fucking money
i deserve a hit,
karma karma karma
he comes back with that slider I'm dead,
don't lean in back off
that's right get the sign and go to the stretch and
zen-state zen-state zen-state
stupid kids and their balls
pitcher rocking back and
stepping and his arm comes out low,
that's the slider motherfucker,
zen-state SWING
and oh my what the fuck...
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strike three you’re out
but determined. not sinking.
not letting their voices accumulate in your head
nor your own. the one you mirror when
you feel discouraged. the one that said you
arenotgoodenough. the one you have learned to burn
out of your veins. still learning, still stinging,
still the blister that needs to heal.
foul
and the missed mark, the mistake, the regret
that eats you away. and then the excuses.
never knew I could hit so high. never knew
I could be so slantwise and smart
and they just don’t get it.
don’t get me. alone again, having
to start over.
ball
safe. hidden. shy. embarrassed. frightened.
the gifts gleaming in your fist. the light under the bushel
and then the bushel smoldering into flame.
first base
relief and joy. go for it, go for it, man!
the sweet pumping of the heart as you wing your way
to the prize. your body weightless,
your breath a influx of spirit.
I will make it, you think, if only they
get me all the way around. my team.
tears of gratitude
to be swallowed as you wait.
home run
miracle, then action.
your legs pumping, heart pounding, focused only
on the goal. the roar as the crowd cheers
only an echo in your bones
because all you know is the end in sight
and you are on your course
determined to save the only life you can save
determined to make it
all the way. absolutely astonished
at how high your heart can soar.
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There is no color to this photograph
of offered baseballs and imminent signatures.
He is gray. The asking arms are nameless --
out of the picture -- even more unknown than truncated
really. No names to fans. Only passing numbers
for the players. We are all beyond gray
when it comes to this game -- or any --
attempting to shine brightly as an un-scuffed ball at first.
Yearning for the brilliant scuff -- to always be
aloft. No grass stains. Airborne. To land
in the bleachers.
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There are things you want as a child
and sometimes you get them.
Sometimes you don't and
sometimes
they just fade away,
you don't want them anymore
but sometimes you do, you still do but
you are too old to get them now.
Sometimes
you can give something and
sometimes you do.
Sometimes someone wants it,
sometimes no one does
and sometimes
you become a stranger's favorite memory. |
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I’ve heard of people who can’t
let go:
people with recently dead
fathers who prop them in cars,
drive two lane highways; tell them
everything they never could
when they were still alive
ball players who hear the cheers
of last year’s game in Kansas City
(a HR, three RBI’s, game winning
catch in left field; head hanging
in the after moment of a torn ACL
Or that new woman you just dated:
the food was good, but the conversation
stalled when she mentioned she couldn’t
let the suffering go on with her dog
and this reminded you too much
of the other woman you left and all
the newspapers you used to burn
in the backyard bin while listening
to the ballgame on the radio your
father gave you for your 50th birthday |
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After the evening breeze blows the brown dust
into the stands, up and out of the stadium,
after thousands have lost their only income
on the economic wind, an artificial weather,
a game, a climate, a shifting push and pull
against the odds prescribed by invisible gods,
there is always a boy and a girl who delight
in the seething throng and the deafening roar.
Even as Rome fell, the masses cheered the races,
until their voices betrayed hunger, death, defeat.
There will always be arenas filled with noise,
coliseums washed in sweat and blood, heroes,
gods and goddesses, oily-muscled men and women
driving chariots for sacred victory and honor.
When the game is over, some heads are held high,
while others droop, muttering hopes over a drink,
until an alarm rings, fuel is burned, and bodies
run through the days, craving their next exaltation.
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Hysteria chatters.
A large chorus of whippoorwills gathers like flies in my chest.
It has been saving up for the perfect time to remind me.
I have gotten fat on penitence.
I have been eating my past;
sinking my jaw into its wet heaving rind.
Memory is a reciprocal of life, an inequality.
Hysteria sits me on a bench.
The rain mats my hair, my fingers prune;
turn immortally white.
Your picture comes skipping down the street
from nowhere
from everywhere,
every place I've been trying to forget.
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Outstretched arms
straining, but restrained
polite, orderly
waiting turn
while pleading
for one small touch of glory
to amplify
the smaller lives
to which the arms attach
Outstretched arms
jostling for position
surreptitiously throwing elbows
crowding out rivals
to make a grab at the prize:
a touch with fleeting fame
that proclaims
I WAS HERE!!
in a time and place
of seeming importance
Outstretched arms
stroking, gesturing,
throwing antics out
to catch a
not yet dead
widow’s eye
seize her favor
and steal away
pieces of her estate
in the desperate hope
of filling an emptiness
that never will be filled.
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This way back
look down at that roadside marker
that stares there is no good reason for me to be here
...
Falling, like the grass under a turned over stone,
is a stillness my stretched skin nails
our laughs to, in the air,
who knows why we kill ourselves
not much else resolved except what manner or way.
...
Sometimes on the way to work, I think
if I was to drive into walls or telephone poles then
they are going to say this about you and
my brother, the electrical lineman for the power company will say
surely he musta had a grudge against the power company
looking down, at me whilst I am wearing his spiked shoes atop the pole, surely, they will see I'm a little tore open my crackerjack box spilling.
...
Fear, there is nothing useful inside more often, there must be some use for it our families, we are tore, like that, a ragged stale mate to their blindspot to be along everyone's work-routines staring up at them from the room of empty dark bellies, continue driving toward these things... lingering just because.
...
Facing
when Mom will cross over to Dad and my own
halfway point- will have to be worked, here is my compass needle, a boney finger Mid-life's crises having to start over with things like reinventing the wheel again: 2 days of going numb, I see a pair of Ravens chasing an Eagle off another day, just hearsay, Eagles are taking down pigeons, in the Twin Cities. |
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he said he'd come back in the summer
he asked me not to forget
he made so many promises
he was twenty-one. |
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A baseball multiplies by the moment.
So that now there are three, dangling by arms.
Other arms, hoping to grow baseballs
by the second, reach into the humility
of an exposed neck - a mournful hope and
thrill of happiness - and they hold
the time of waiting - still.
They are above what matters, yet they are,
above all else, exactly what matters.
A jellyfish surrounding the world. |
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