Danville's minor league baseball
team I got a request to write about
just like that one about Dan.
It's fun to go to their stadium
at dusk.
The sun still beats down.
The concessions are prompt and tasty.
Of course the players' homes
are scattered all around.
They've got ability, of course -
you can't even make little league
without being somewhat good,
and some of the players
rose to play in the majors, although
I can't remember names.
The stadium was the original place
that they made a movie at
about Babe Ruth called The Babe
with John Goodman playing Babe.
The last coach seems competent.
They have I guess a raffle
but being a bad luck artist
I don't pay attention to stuff
like that.
They have a good public
address system and the help seems
competent,
and there's a good cross-section
of people in the stands
some of whom are fascinating to
look at.
They usually win when I go
and even have an elevator
for the disabled or
handicapped.
Yeah the Dans -
Lets give em' a hand -
a night at the ballpark
with them is a pleasure
although for certain people
a night there might
haunt them with memories
of what might have been
for them in a yesteryear
what with some of their
players gone in a couple
of years, the ghosts of
future and past big
leaguers, the wooden benches, and the
gratitude on some of
the fans' faces just
to watch a single game

If it is a race, then the pace of one set of clouds out does the ones that float above lazily. Smokey dragons cut across Odin’s one good godly eye. The night pursues its cold cool wind muse,
and I cannot lose, because I use this muse so well. I walk the building corner to brick corner unwilling to enter the unyielding nightmare hallways. I do not wish to walk in the white hollow echo chambers, alone and uninspired while the night spirals in lunar delight. I postpone it as long as I can, walking the yellow concrete corners like they are tight high wire. I swerve and struggle to maintain my perfect position, for fear of falling into the black top lava pit. The inside world waits for me like a ravenous beast. Please oh please do not force me to leave the light breeze that brushes my skin gently. Glass and metal doors see me swallowed whole. I did not want to go but now I know this white washed world will be my graveyard fantasy. The red buds on the tree beckon me, but I cannot go back out. The musical clank of metal clips that hang the flags summons me beyond the security doors with their dangerous whipping movements, but I am not allow to explore such freedom. The strangers of varying degrees, shapes, weights, skin tints, hair, and teeth beckons me to question their history. I cannot go out there to the fantastic. No that is a lie. I could if I tried, but I chose to hide in a secure hourly wage paid life. I could leave and let my wanderlust take me where it will. I could go back to Pleasantville, Champaign, Williamsville, Pontiac, Mt. Vernon, and Danville, then go see places I have never been. I could give in to the seductive siren call of landscapes unseen, sounds unheard, and strangers not yet met. Instead I sign my time sheet, walk and repeat, securing nothing. I drive home tired and come back and repeat that as well. I accept the mundane. It is a part of the price I pay for a slice of peace.

Roast pork and mashed potatoes
with pork gravy on both,
biscuits and gravy,
chicken and noodles,
beef and noodles,
spaghetti
roast turkey and mashed potatoes
with turkey gravy on both,
BBQ chicken,
polish sausage
filling tasty
and that'll put hair
on your chest.
good grub,
sure a little fatening
but it'll make you tuff.
smother it with
onions
and watch it disappear those bunions
I don't know
whether it's down home
but it'll stop you
from wanting to roam.

woman and men killing and eating,
woman and men having the best of them all,
what is the best?
where does it lie?
Pulled pork sandwiches on a Sunday afternoon.

and in other houses beside me,
are men and woman
being kind and being loved,
and being fools.
breaking the glass,
drinking until the black covers their eyes.

men and woman breathing and hearing
upon each other,
men and woman beating themselves
sometimes hitting the woman,
slapping the man,
woman and men banging
the bed to hell.

I never hear from the girl who
lives in L.A OR Danville CA.
I live in London On
and there's this blonde
who I would like to meet
but something I fear.
is it me?
We used to talk, now that seems to
be done.

Why does waking up in a bed feel
so torturous some days,
I wake up at night,
two times,
three times.
I can never get a good sleep.
I want to feel someone's legs and
those morning eyes
when waking up at 10 in
the morning.

Like when my best friend
signed a 1049 (volunteering on a form) for Vietnam
rather than volunteering out loud
like he was giving in to the paper tigers
lifers
when mother and father both died,
when my wife scolded me when
we were going together for having
kinda like a girlfriend
at a summer job on Cape Cod
when James Brown died
when a black car here
at the Danville VA more or less
so seemed to me
to be accusing me of racism
at the beauty of patriotism
I've noticed periodically in my life.

And that's the glory
The story
Of Washington Post sports writer Shirley Povich.
You might ask
What makes great
Sports writers
Like **** Young
And Phil Pepe
And Dan Daniel
I'd say it has nothing
To do with gals
Names Laurie
But  knowing when
To mention
When it's even gory.
Joe Falls of the Patriot free press
Whose coma was in the old
Sporting news was my favorite
But now, I like local stuff
Put out by a couple of sport writers
Down at the Danville conference
News-Chad dare and Marvin Holman

I'm singling out a VA character for specific serating at the suggestion of a friend.
David Dively seems the most interesting and that name implies he was on
Danville Skid Row a lot, which he was.
He said his disability rating was only 10% but the constant remark from him
to me that he was gonna make me **** a moose seemed to me to be a real
inkling of a real oddball.
Some people would explain to me that he'd ******* over one of the nurses
or another fantasy of some kind every morning and he was quite proud of it.

He'd shake my hand and squeeze it and moan sorta and go aaaaahhh and his
eyes would mist up and I liked it when he called me STuries like I was one of of the men.
He'd strut and he was 6'9" and 260 lb and an ex-marine, maybe a combat type
and he'd sell watches with all of them spread out on his right arm to show people
and he was always grateful for the least bit of loose change from me, like 35 cents.
He just loved bread - he'd make sure he'd get 5 or 6 slices each meal.

An interesting character was Dively.
He's dead now - bless his heart.  Suicide, I heard, over what he though was my
mistreatment by some of the staff back then.
And oh yes he was a very very handsome fellow too, but in a
kind of tough unique way.  A sort of fair-haired Victor Mattie if I remember correctly.

Ya, the taste of ice cream on his lips
Ya, garlic mustard growing on the ridge
Ya, the good ideas on the fretboard
Ya, I hone the sound of thunder in my hand

Ya, Philadelphia
Ya, Rapunzel let down her hair
Ya, Dipper Riley Marko and Tucker
Ya, Texas

Ya, Pokémon
Ya, al kahul
Ya, Fall Out Boy
Ya, skinny jeans
Ya, asymmetrical hairdo

Ya, Kitty
Ya, Rock and Roll
Ya, the nature preserve
Ya, The Way She Moves

Ya, Mayday Parade
Ya, the Philadelphia Orchestra
Ya, Music Theory Classes
Ya, backpacking by yourself

Ya, Family
Ya, the Museum of Modern Art
Ya, Mount Hoback
Ya, Cimarron NM

Ya, The Wonder Years
Ya, Allen Ginsberg
Ya, The Moon
Ya, the Wissahickon Green Ribbon Trail

Ya, the mansion
Ya, Devil's Pool
Ya, Bloomsburg
Ya, Danville

Ya, Kangaroo
Ya, girlfriend
Ya, Australian licorice

Ya, Gameboy color
Ya, AOL Instant Messenger
Ya, The Killers
Ya, Santa Claus

Ya, Chipotle
Ya,