CASEY AT THE BAT
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that --
We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat.
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake.
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat.
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Johnnie safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.
From the benches, bleak with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm waves on a worn and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone in the stands,
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it and the umpire said, "Strike two."
"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and the echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out.
Ernest L. Thayer
Sonnet to Baseball
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything;
The aging umpire laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the cracks of bats, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the baseball's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion of the glove;
There were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, your pattern sketched in love.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you did call,
As with your shadow, I with these, "Play Ball."
Jeffrey Sward
(with the assistance of William Shakespeare)
FIRST PITCH
How many speeds
that white orb can take!
Angles, curves, drifts
and Bonds jiggles the bat,
mock strokes pre-enact
relaxed, extended muscles
at impact
and the dance begins.
Line up bones, tendons, muscles,
spirit and mind blank
but for intuitive calculating
as the pitcher uncoils
and all Bond's moving musculature
springing in rhythm
aims at the
meeting of ball and bat.
Or not.
Whoosh! Of air
a small hurricane at the plate
with no resistance bat
and everything behind it
fling out of control
like an unbolted helicopter.
Arms, legs, head, neck, feet
stumble, halt,
nestle back into place
pulled by bungie cords.
Regain footing.
Clear mind of everything but every
detail of that pitch.
Start over.
Clive Matson
things fall in the sun
did a little
semi
pro
walk on
had
good parts
of at bats
got pieces of the ball I found something good in
though while couldn't
hit
the freaks of nature
green snotty kid with terrored catapult arm
gets past me like the incoming mail
also the spitting-at-the-wind whip curves
feel like I'm swinging at grease,
angered zones of bees,
couldn't hit the too hard to see menaces
batting practice was OK
they couldn't spell but wrote down
can't hit.
like this snapped opinion would
define me
scratched also, can't field.
somehow defined me in their eyes too
can't throw.
but they were measuring me against
hey I love this game
see those far out there vendors
heavy carried trays of
they love this game
a
sad jowled coach, far down the ladder,
posts me awhile
sprinklers kicked on
the late sag history shadows ruining
another day
talks gray eyes, white milled head,
how doing something anything else I'm
better for the game in leaving it
Peter Layton
(Previously published in LOS – thanks to
C. Mulrooney for permission to use here)
untitled
Esther,William Carlos,and Ted
they roll on down the everloving carpet
roll now those dice of in the moment history
at the wheel, for your illumination,
no reason to mumble, no house of explanation
they roll across the mandated seas
in some kind of garrulous season
dreams show up and wander in from the parking lot
they make it to the counter in time for the special
count your change, invent the world again
roll now those sluggers of the vulnerable wood
Standing at home plate, any attempted home, anything that
can hold your food for a plate, standing
in the ongoing poker game of being, Ted Williams
sang the vernacular, child, and the cub scouts and girl scouts
they quit scouting now because they have discovered
Eureka...population, anyone possible...Ted Williams
arm wrestled the ornery weather and tonight you can
wear your head in plain view...roll now those dice
of all your sung history...invent the world if you
can...in some garrulous season...down your everloving
carpet of vulnerable wood...Ted, the conductor, punched
your ticket to a bona fide soiree...Eureka...sing now
your vernacular, standing possible...
Scott Wannberg 7/6/02
The Outfielder
There's Jesse, planted in left field,
a sapling in the burning sun.
He looks so small and far away.
A batter wields a torch-like bat
above home plate, then swings and hits
a solid swack, while everyone
thinks: Bases! Panic hits the dugout
floor. The fielders hurry south,
and Jesse, running backwards, face
to sky, arms reaching, lifts the leather
mitt, a hatchling's open beak.
The ball drops into sight an instant,
then slips into the gullet of
his glove, while heaven glows as if
it swallowed its own blaze. The dust
looks more like smoke as he runs in,
and, slowing at the chain-link wire,
To cheers displays the smothered fire.
Leslie Monsour
MICKEY'S DREAM
The nights I dreamt that I was stuck
In a car, in a uniform, out of luck,
I'd hear them say "It's time for you,"
But there's a hole I can't crawl through...
When you're going good you just want more,
When you're going good and twenty-four.
But here I am , in a dream, in a car,
And all of a sudden...there you are.
Jim Rosenfield
I saw Ted Williams play
Fenway Park when I was a kid
'48 or '49
- before the invention of
the electric tooth brush.
Naturally he hit a
home run, a drive that seemed
to rise straight up - almost vertically for
1,000 miles, and then gently wafted
over the fence, due to the wind at
that elevation. Left field
fence at Fenway, if memory serves;
right field fence at Ebbets
Field, and memory serves.
I seem to remember that when I
saw him, he indeed did tip his hat
to the fans in the stands.
Steve Goldman
baseball haiku
a bunch of overpaid
bums standing on a grassy
field waiting for...
Michael D. Meloan
O FOR THE MIND OF AN UNBATTERED MAN
"If you don't think too good, don't
think too much." --Ted Williams
Same advice if you DO think good?
Would you stop thinking (if you could)?
Know what's left once you've thought too much?
One more lost poet...or some such.
Kenneth Leonhardt
Baseballs and Hand Grenades
(For Luke Breit and Art Mantecon and Joe Marty)
Two men are playing baseball
in the twilight--
one white, one brown.
Each toss, each throw--
a dream of words,
a white cast
into the falling day
orchestrated by their fathers' voices
calling, "Just one more."
This great American way
of passing time
between fathers and sons,
men and men,
boys and boys.
A fast flying whiteness
suspending time
as you reach for it,
connecting with glove and bat,
the slap, the smack,
its comforting roundness
in your hand.
The physicality of it all--
the dusty dirt green plate
leather sun wood run air.
Just this once, you are going to
knock it WAY over the fence,
and you will wave your cap
as you dance past first, second, third,
all the way home--
and no one will be able to do anything
but look at you in awe
as the crowd goes wild.
Two men are playing baseball
in the twilight,
and afterwards they will go out
for a beer and talk about how
good it was.
And when their sons take up
skateboarding and snowboarding,
these men, their fathers,
will try to understand
and will sit down and
write a poem about
their fathers.
3-16-02
Eskimo Pie Girl
fragment
a national art is the very hardest thing to achieve if
it doesn't dwell in the hearts of many people here and
there it's here not there or if it's there it's here and there
the same as here not there it's here or hereafter it's here
it's the magnanimous thing that dwells in the hearts of many people
we are Legion says the devil full of swine and goes the heart is
weltering in the vertices of art it can't imagine if you know
if whether or not the pallid accuses the conqueror or maid
the fantastic images that break through or mainly manufacture
the obstreperous villainly disestablishmentarianism here
where you can't say hay without thinking of horses and
old racetracks apparent in a glade mountains high oh
here is the bust of the poet in a wood with calm verses
our greatness gives a damn from time to time enough
in clouds of clamor refining up the steepest climes
a parlor and a tea Earl Grey for preference what
the same or likeness enow to wonder if the same twilled worsted
goes to manufacture any things worth cutting the same if
branded tattooed painted curlicued qualified or whatever
dispassionate or placed in the field for a whim or purpose
the same evidence not easily found but not manufactured
at some cost all cost cost-free the whirligig from here
the way all around to here and there in courses through
the idea of all ideas the way you go through chains of thought
and find a link loose here or there or simply put a whole
in active placements all around and such activity itself
an adequate placement self-referential or irreflective and
the grandeur of the whole manufactured with a cunning
so as to displace all placements in the abstract like a
punchline withering the frame in Corot shivers for the nonce
and gaining what you might call a sense of humor larger
than it seems at first like Lear a Solomon accursed
by dint of multitudes of idol-worshiping housewives
for two is many is enough the idol has its blank stare
Galen says emitting nothing in the way of light
who says the light has power and gives sight so seeing
gives displacement in the blinding things we see and lose
but they are there or if in terra incognita here not there
so we go there and manufacture them and call them things
to admire and regard if so only to see them and admire
whatever wonders there may be here somewhat overlooked
because as far as you can go is oft surprisingly very far
and we catch up catch on deal with one by one the catches
so we get it finally for the nonce and go on with the game
that soars and scuds and shimmers over the land with
green fields and bases and paths you know the game I
throw you hit we run you throw I hit we run it's the game
Christopher Mulrooney
Pinstripe Suits
Believe it or not
I grew up wanting
to wear a pinstripe suit
but not the kind
that banker’s wear.
I wanted to wear the pinstripes
that adorned my baseball heroes
those New York Yankees
legends of the long ball
running the outfield
that skirted my Bronx birthplace.
I was born in the
shadow of Yankee stadium
just down the street
March 31 was the day.
when Bronx hospital rocked
to the muse in daily delivery.
I was born so bad
I slapped the doc
and pinched the nurse
no one touches my butt
without permission.
But what I really wanted
was to wear that Yankee uniform
put spikes on my feet
run that infield
grace the house that Ruth built
DiMaggio reigned
and mantle owned.
These gentlemen of baseball
dressed in their sports regalia
as if it were religion they pursued
and not homeruns.
They wore Holy Roller pinstripes
crossed their bats and hope to hit
cut quite the dashing figures
this divinity of four baggers.
The holy trinity of Ruth
DiMaggio and Mantle
sporting pinstripe suits
worn by the baseball elite.
I longed to dress in locker rooms
and hear my name called on
public address systems,
look into the sun and catch fly balls
and pound my bat at the plate
Making ready to be the next
Sultan of Swat
Yankee Clipper
the Mick.
I was born in the Bronx
and lived above
a dry cleaning store
not part of any
charming baseball dynasty.
I had to play catch with myself
as part of the Jaffe clan
a blue-collar bunch
but not an athlete in the crew.
I grew up wanting to
dress in pinstripes
wear that Yankee suit
because I could never wear a tie
without feeling enslaved. I
wanted to roam centerfield
not a factory or an office.
And if I couldn’t play baseball
And if I couldn’t play baseball
then I had to be a poet.
© 1999 – 2001
Larry Jaffe
TW
I see the stitches
on the ball
of Death
I hit it
home
run
criminy
i'd rather be a fireman
Jack Foley
The Demise of Number 9
More than a splinter
Less than splendid
To see how The Kid's big
Inning
Ended.
Joe Masi
TEDDY BALLGAME
Someday I'll come back
First among thawed angels
Keep the score down until I bat again
The two-base knock
The mammoth blast
The spheroid driven into the arclights of the beer drinking archangels
A heavenly wave I'll give them.
Once all day I hit the frozen rope. Today
I am one.
Joe Masi
The Splendid Splinter(s)
Who would have thought
that the greatest hitter
of several generations
would end up as the focus
of a brutal-bizarre-court
fight concerning disposal
of his remains? The daughter
pleading for cremation-
her younger-half brother
taking charge-hustling
Ted to the Arizona desert
site to be frozen for future
considerations-all the better
to sell his DNA as per
son's stated intentions-
for what? to breed a new
race of surly left handed
power hitting outfielders
with a near perfect swing?
Somehow it is difficult to
imagine Ted's last wishes
were to achieve a kind of
immortality through cloning-
Pete Rose I could understand-
but Ted? Still none of us ever
hit .406 for a whole season
either. Little did all those
heckling red Sox fans know
that when they suggested he
go to a warm place of poor
quality-that he come to an
extreme bad end-that they
would get their wish.
Alan Catlin
The Baseball Player Stephen Crane
"I did little work at Syracuse, but
confined my abilities such as they were,
to the diamond." SC
Manny French's fastball rocked him back
on his heels but Crane refused to wear
the padded glove for catching.
Although his hands would be red from
the constant impact of the hard ball,
bruised after nine rounds of catching,
his expression never changed and his
enthusiasm for the game never waned.
Jumping up after each third strike,
although his hands were numb and his arm
weak, he would throw the ball down to
third as hard as he could. Never a strong
hitter, he was a capable one, even shrewd
in his placement, making the most of what
he had with an energy level that would
compensate for the lack of raw talent.
After every game he was the first man
at the pool hall for a beer and eight ball,
preferring as he would later, a famous
writer, the talk of the tavern to that of
the literate man. Education, he felt, was
better learned on the ball field, attributing
his knowledge of war to what he saw on
the football field, time clearly well spent
for the man who memorialized a war he never
saw as no other would.
Alan Catlin
IT MUST BE AUGUST -WE'RE AT A DODGER GAME
(For Harry Northup)
We're with my cousins, and with John and Jill.
Friday night, forty-one thousand fans to watch the Dodgers
beat the Mets. Sheffield's having a good season;
we are, too. Nachos and homeruns. I don't like summer
much, but I like this. Favorite cousins visiting
from out of town; friends we never get to see enough of.
We'll convert John yet, we tell him. He's a Boston man,
can't give up his Red Sox. There's hope, we think:
the view at Dodger Stadium impresses him. The Dodgers
give it everything they've got. We come to games
to cheer our hometown team, but mostly just to sit together,
you and I,
looking out at timelessness. Beyond the wins and losses,
I see a sweet eternity: green, grassy diamond, always ready,
Always waiting for another then another then another game.
Next time we're here, we'll celebrate your birthday.
All you've asked for is a Dodger game and Greenblatt's cheesecake.
During the late innings, I'll go into the gift shop
to buy Dodger Dollars, put them in a card for you at Christmas.
I do this every year. It gives us a head start on top-deck
tickets. This is where we always sit, relishing the vantage
point, better than expensive seats. Baseball:
Nothing in our sinful world makes this much sense.
I wouldn't say it's our religion, and it isn't,
but I'd say the game extends our souls, those subtle
yearnings toward a larger good. After the ninth inning
on your birthday, there will be fireworks -fountains and
mandalas and great floral bursts. They make us gasp.
How rare it is to gasp, to be completely taken in by
beauty, by its quick profusion. Of course, that fades.
We're never innocent enough to think it won't.
So what? Satisfaction doesn't have to be perfection.
Sitting here with you is plenty, knowing that the nachos
matter - salt and crunch and cheese. The cousins. John
and Jill. Yes, everybody else -tonight is blessed:
no guy bigger than an SUV in front of us;
no kid wearing a blue foam rubber hand, its "We're
Number One" finger right in our faces. No bunch
of business people from some office, here to socialize,
not watch the game. We're definitely watching, eating,
laughing. This is summer. You were once a baseball
player, played up to the semi-pros. Here's to boys
who want to play as well as they can play. To skill,
to pure devotion to the game. Here's to Karros, to
Lo Duca, to Shawn Green. Harry, here's to you.
August, 2001
Holly Prado
opening day
the opening day of the baseball season
was one of the most anticipated
days of the year for a kid growing up
in rochester, new york, in the 1940s and
‘50s. we could be excused at noon
into the custody of our fathers
(who were also allowed half-days off
by their employers) to rush to the
old norton park stadium of the red wings
for hot dogs, peanuts, cracker jack,
and “pop” (as soda was called), and
an afternoon of wholesome, heartpounding
ritual male bonding in the ambiance of
what was still regarded as “the national
pastime.”
of course the scheduled opener was
always rained out, and the next day as
well, but eventually the clouds would clear
long enough for the home plate umpire to
yell “play ball” in hopes the regulation
five innings could be completed before
another downpour swept in.
we learned disappointment early. but also
that life had thrills to offer that did
not have to be chemically induced.
i felt a shadow of that holiday excitement
today at the opening of the baseball season
of my sixty-first year. roger clemmens and
the yankees made it a successful april 2 nd
by prevailing over their longtime “cousins”
the kansas city royals, and the angels
compounded my pleasure by coming up short
against the texas rangers.
since this evening the arizona wildcats,
my graduate alma mater,
were defeated in the finals of the ncaa
by the doubly elite duke blue devils,
and since the lakers are dead without
kobe bryant, i was grateful to the gods
for these minor dispensations.
still, i don’t feel these things with
the intensity of childhood:
wordsworth had that pitch nailed.
and unlike wordsworth and joyce.
i do not harbor intimations of some
metempsychotic recycling in which i
will return to throw out the first pitch
in the yankees’ new ballpark on
alpha centauri. instead i just take
both joy and sadness in these momentary
revisitings of a simpler time, a simpler
place, when radio accounts of world
series game (almost always involving
the yankees, and often the dodgers or
the giants) were piped through the
public address systems into our
grammar school classrooms, and the nuns
led us in rosaries for the team
with the most good catholic boys.
Gerald Locklin
(Previously published in The Hammer)
Jim Abbott. Bottom of The First
(Pan American Games, 1986)
The drag bunt,
usually reserved
for tight games
and late innings
when runs are "manufactured"
and in short supply.
Where making contact
is not a sure thing.
But, here in Havana,
the top of the order
dumps offerings
onto the red infield dirt
almost before the anthems decay
They are here to fuck with this guy
They've never seen a one-handed pitcher
so they keep laying it down
and he keeps throwing them out.
How he tucks his leather
under that perfect stump
when he delivers
and how he's got it fitted
onto his hand
before that puff of dust
rises off the catcher's mitt,
before the sharp report
of the ball meeting the mitt
reverberates off the planks
behind centerfield.
At the end of one,
no runs, no hits,
no errors,
no one left.
Rick Smith
Ah yes baseball
So what is this tale of the moving streets
trees up to climb
born to sell once
Liberty and Collier magazines
so slick and pretty and smelled so nice
In front of the entrance revolving
Monkey Ward customers.
Nickels, dimes--a quarter get you change back.
Money which provided the sweet smelling hide
the brand new fielder’s mitt.
I feel the head bump
the vestige Is still there.
I smell the grass almost.
I see the field bordered both sides and the end of it by modest
houses, an old Portland mansion slipping down a gentle slope 26 blocks
into the Willamette River. Somebody's marble is aloft wedged between dirt and the cement pad of the handball court. Chipped, no shooter. That concrete fountain under the maple really shoots the water. Kite there In a fir tree. A scraggley pink rose in a grave size patch of garden around the brick restroom in the middle of the park pretends a tone of some sort. The keeper's shovel leans against the mid afternoon light. The northwest hills layer tree shades to the settling shadow lights. Foot high to summit forestside needles and leaves green to deep purple, distant. Almost into night ahead of the clock. A boomerang summer park levitates the horizon returning nearby corner saloons and low end houses, the clapboard tenements, Saint John's Bridge over Swan Island in the river. The shipyard steel clanks through the flats, warehouses, and industry over the Portland Beaver Baseball Park on Raleigh Street onto my own playing field, dink! Through the backstop close-up loud green day Is Chapman Grade School itself. A two story built in the teens, early to late 1920's. Faded naturally light red brick, windows framed white stone. ..I was on. ..on the mound,
or was it
at bat?
The bat was thrown, bump on me forehead, bump!
Taking off from the plate
the batter threw it from halfway down the baseline.
I must have been running In for a smash ground hop.
I must have been pitching
Instead he was throwing
supposed to be batting.
Bump!
Okay. Say a piece did go, the brain right then
or jarred Ineffective and way out of place
leaving elbows on vacant wlndowsills
and no names are important
and the chimes are gone anyway
and all that passed until now is as now
and say my righteous good conduct
and obsess for prone comfort
that kept my pride lazy
and me dubious about lots of things
Including the winner's circle
and my feet from getting warm
is the cripple In my path
that saves each day
half spent somewhat
so what?
I eat before my eyes
the Incessant predictable parts
out of sight, Insight!
In my control, okay!
But base ball.
Baseball.
This has nothing to do with baseball
unless this remnant protruding bump
pug noodle
cannibal bone buried below my leaping cape
over a dry puddle
diamond summer
is an excuse to fly home
then maybe. Yeah.
Then just maybe.
Maybe then baseball.
Bill Morrison
almost haiku
always there's a shot
of the moon or clouds on
televised baseball games
Robert Rico
Grounding Out in Southern California
"we made too many wrong mistakes" Yogi Berra
Clouds descended
over our hometown houses
and swam all the way to Pasadena
putting a diaphanous coil
around Brookside Park
like cjorouses from a 1949 movie soundtrack
How long has it been
since Chuck Conners caught a ripple
punching a long single to the right field corner
later got picked off, as Nellie Fox mitts a relay
from Al Zarilla, shovels it over to Chico Carrasquel
forcing an out, putting him on a leash between
2nd & 3rd in the bottom of the 9th: but, with Bob Rush
hurling a six-hitter, still, the Cubbies clipped the
White Sox about 2,000 miles from home turf
It rained yesterday the same way
it did in the springtime a long time ago, when we
were begging for bubblegum on benign street corner
universes: and at the same time, begging for the moon
to spend a little more time with us
on nights free from the drag of discipline: free
from the raspy rule-ridden demanding holler
from a strange woman we called "mother" for some
reason, and free to remain patrolling the outfield wall
and begging for a chance to bag one in deep center
just like "handy" Andy Pafko
So doesn't it seem a little bit weird, now, that we who,
somehow, survived traumatic
American disillusion,
since 1951, are still into some kind of
pre-season exhibition?
And is there ant chance at all that we could ever be called
on account of rain?
Michael C. Ford
TED WILLIAM'S TONGUE AS RECALLED BY
A FORMER COCKTAIL WAITRESS TOMATO
The waitresses in the coffee shop hated baseball
season when all the baseball players stayed there
in the swanky hotel where we all worked, me in
the cocktail lounge, they hated how rude they
were, what cheapskates, and their filthy mouths
these women my mother's age raised to be ladies
even if they did have to work for a living and they
hated Ted Williams the most who never left more
than one thin dime after a king-size breakfast of
10 eggs and a slab of ham and always snuffed his
20 cigarettes he smoked over 10 pots of free coffee
into the leftover hash brown potatoes and ketchup.
What a slob, they always said about him and told
me how he called them all broads or Hey Tomato
but I didn't care, I'd heard worse, having been a
go-go gir13 years before this cocktail lounge job
and sloshed beer for 3 thousand men and listened
to their lies, their fears and lies before they got so
snockered they'd offer me $100 to meet them in
the backseat of their car after work so I went on
into the coffee shop unafraid of Ted Williams and
asked while he lit another cig for his autograph for
my little boy and Yeah babe, he gave it to me, "To
Danny" he wrote and my son was thrilled and, noble
Lady Madonna single mother raising 3 kids 8 days a
week I imagined myself to be in those days, I never
told my son what that champion rod of splendid
splinters said to my backside when I walked away.
Joan Jobe Smith
World Series 1963
I was in the seventh grade
For some reason
No one could fathom
Life (which meant school)
Did not stop during the
Duration of the series
That year
Forcing bands of us to huddle
Twenty boys or more
Around transistor (Made in Japan)
Radios at P.E. and Lunch recess
I don’t recall who was playing
Though I suspect it had to
Be the Boys in Blue (Maury Wills
Big Don Drysdale and Sandy
Koufax) because we were so
Avidly glued to those tinny
Little speakers
Barely able to eat our sandwiches
Or the other parts of our well-
Balanced (circa 60s) lunches
This was life and death
The whole enchilada rolled
Into one seminal week
It was make or break time
We had no clue as to what
Was about to come whistling
Down the pike
A knuckle ball slider that would
Have us all diving out of the
Batter’s box for our very lives
Fate was on the mound
“Here’s the windup and
the pitch…”
RD Armstrong
ABOUT THE GUY WHO MAKES THIS ALL HAPPEN
Editor and poet,RD Armstrong writes poetry and fiction when he can find the time. Mostly, he's either working on his many Lummox projects (the Lummox Journal, a monthly magazine; the Little Red Book series which is published by the Lummox Press; the LSW Newsletter, a specialized "poets market" type of newsletter) or he's repairing / painting somebody's home. His most recent books are The San Pedro Poems and Paper Heart #4.
Special thanks to the Lummox Patrons: Georgia Cox, Pete Sims, Sooz Glazebrook, Greg Shield & Colleen Cunningham, Anonymous, Bonnie Bechtol, John Forsha, Back In The Saddle, Larry Jaffe and Matt Harrison. You can become a patron too. Contact RD at the email address below.
For more information please check the links listed below.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
To submit to DUFUS read on. Themes: there are no themes (or are there?). I'm looking for poetry that is well-written. Deadlines: There are no deadlines. Isn't that convenient? Just email three poems, of 40 lines or less to lumoxraindog@earthlink.net and please no attachments. Also include a brief bio.
The Little Red Book poetry series is published by Lummox Press in the handy, pocket-sized format (48 - 56 pages) for reading on the go! Just $6 ppd (USA) or $8 ppd (Foreign) from LUMMOX (PO Box 5301, San Pedro, CA 90733-5301, USA).
On The Record is an expanding library of Poets on CDs - buy a CD and get their book for FREE! CDs are $10 USD + $1.50 postage (US & Canada) or $10 USD + $2.50 postage (world). So far: Leonard J. Cirino reading Poems of The Royal Courtesan Li Xi; RD Armstrong reading from The San Pedro Poems; and pending: Alan Catlin reading from Death and Transfiguration Cocktail and Mark Weber's Bombed In New Mexico.
 Links To Some Of The Poets In The Current Issue Of DUFUS.
 Eskimo Pie Girl
Larry Jaffe
Gerry Locklin
Christopher Mulrooney
Scott Wannberg
other Lummox poets
Cesar Chavez Tribute
The San Pedro Poems
DUFUS #3
Comments welcome
This site updated Sept. 4, 2002
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