You have played softball for years
You know the rules
You only get three strikes
4 strikes?
What a generous umpire

Take a seat in the dugout
You've struck out
There is no doubt

Batter up?

There's a tiny park a short walk from here
where no one ever goes.
Though it's always abandoned,
I like to walk there when it snows
               'cuz it seems like
                     a relative.

Don't complain to me, my friend
if your face is feeling raw;
It gets cold here in Montana,
and December nights get long.
               and they have not
                   failed me yet.

So salt your frigid frown
and lay down bets on warmer times
in five more months, the thaw will come
and we just might quit rolling snake eyes.
Icy air is not your enemy
and neither are this small city
                                              or I.

The same park, it has a baseball field,
leaf-covered, looking old
the dugout's still in good repair,
but the basepaths overgrown
               remind me of,
           A New Year's alone

Remember one warm night when we thought
we were in the mood
to walk to the convenience store
for some box wine and some food?
               we played cards,
             locked in my room...

Now we're crying California tears
from laughing all night long.
And you don't really hate Montana,
you're just doing Winter wrong.

So lay your anger down
and hedge your bets 'til nicer days
don't stay inside, 'cuz you don't have to.
Graft my smile over your grimace,
this dull white-out's not the end for us
and neither is the bitter cold
                                                   outside.

Aloft upon some distant shore
The seabird sets her wings to soar
The salt sea tang of crested breeze
Or howling gale of winters freeze,
Through oceans, mountainous or not
Or sea Sargasso flat and hot,
In dancing wavelets sparkling clear
Where hunted mackerel school in fear,
Where natives in their dugout boats
Caste out their nets and balsa floats,

That tiny bird will soar adrift
Negotiating each wind shift.
One wonders how a thing so small
Can fly against the wind at all;
But sweep she does and plunge and veer
In gracious symmetry to steer
Across the oceans vastness too,
To land right there, right next to you.
In squawking lightness, dancing swings
Sea bird alights ….and folds her wings.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
8th. December 2007

Today, somebody's words awoke the ashes of my long dead heart
I know that was much more than mere fictional ink spilling out of a creative mind
I forgot how that felt, years back, you know, emotions
it reminded me of the excuses I gave to myself
for running away from relationships
for choosing to live alone
for not meeting my friends often
for not talking to my family for over a minute
for deciding I am simply not meant for marriage
and certainly not for ever having kids
their hurt, hurt me
and it felt like more than I could take
so I chose unattachedness over fragility
somehow, that strategy doesn't forge too well here
I am too seized by words to even try to be nonchalant towards my current better half
towards strangers over family
the rust has been removed from over my bemired emotions
pragmatism has been thrown to the dugout
those words have left my haven purged
and I am left befuddled, meditating over a paradox
They aren’t my carks, yet, I can't stop feeling them.

Quiet are the fields
with ghosts
from pennants past
the aces
and cutters
set idly away
from the maple
spread fall
soft sounds
of Sunday
(chilling on the boneyard)
telling tales of
validated stars
and wheel house legends
the rally cap sluggers
with mahogany eyes

Mustard colors
in floating mists
give a bite
to sublime skies
scattered walkers
trip to the hole
their spit buckets
and spigots
pressed into
pure life form
bikers and loners
and curious coffee goers
mill about the horn
whispering numbers
from an old
Keelman heaving

Alley lookers
and Mendoza lines
screachers, bleachers
from years gone by
dancing fingers
and cracks at the bat
moonshots
(from the big time Timmy Jim)
the 9th inning gunner
with sinker
and slider
and imposing
brush back *****
the game day citizen
and dugout warrior
who lit it up
in Rockwell fame

He'd just served up a dinger, 450 out...upper deck

His third home run that inning, and  he figured "what the heck"

He knew the hook was coming, first they had to make the call

Then the pitching coach would come out, before he had to give the ball

To the manager, all stoic, spouting rhetoric and then

He'd turn over the game ball, a kind of baseball zen

He'd come to learn this process,

He'd seen more and more this year

The time was getting closer

He'd have to hang 'em up this year

For five straight games he'd got the hook

Never getting to the third

And there was that team suspension

For flashing fans the bird

Frustration, more than anger made him vent and flash the sign

It was captured on the jumbotron, his finger.....8 foot 9

It made all of the sports reels, his finger in the air

But at 46, he thought, well....I really do not care

He was signed.. a bonus baby, out of Henderson N . V

He came up  out of high school in summer sixty three

His fastball, just untouchable...ninety miles per at least

And on opposing batters he would surely have a feast

He knew what he was throwing, was the best in many years

But at eighteen he was still surrounded by lots of big league  fears

In high school he set records, went to State, and led the team

He was the best left handed starter, Henderson had ever seen

He won each game he pitched in, hit for numbers, struck out tons

His team outscored opponents by at least three hundred runs

Scouts were out to watch him, every time he took the mound

And he knew this as he walked out, tossed the rosin on the ground

He chose to bypass college, heading to developmental ball

If he did what he was told, he be in Lakewood  by the fall

He got the call in August, saying "son, you're on your way"

"You'll be on the train this morning and tomorrow you might play"

So, he made his calls, told those he knew he was heading to N.J.

He was gonna set Lakewood  on fire, he was gonna have his day

He sat for weeks when he arrived, erratic was his stuff

"You've got to tame that curve ball kid, it's just not good enough"

His first start in September, he was nervous and concerned

What if I blow this chance and back to Texas, I'm returned

HE started off with two walks, hitting one then fanning three

He was feeling better, just what people came to see

After five innings they pulled him, with ten strike outs to his name

His team was up six nothing, he was gonna win this game

And sure enough the bullpen came on in and shut the door

And before the season ended he was winning three games more

That winter he went home again, and worked on his control

He knew what the coach wanted, he understood his role

Next spring down in  Clearwater he showed he had improved

So when the final cuts came down, up to double A he moved

It didn't take them long to find him burning up the mound

In fifteen starts, a hundred K's,  no one better could be found.

From here he went to Allentown, to AAA he'd go

Next move that he would make from here should put him in the show

He only threw 3 games down here, two big league starters down

He was called on up to the big time, and was starting....out of town

He only pitched an inning,  two thirds to be exact

He got lit up for 6 runs that night, hard to keep it all intact

He finshed out watching more games, than he pitched in but he knew

He'd be in the spring rotation wearing number forty two.

He met with mixed success at times never coming up real big

For as each year passed his fastball slowed and harder he would dig

His bonus money squandered, three wives gone, investmestments too

He bounced around the league a bit, hitting eight teams in succession

It was enough to do a weak man in, at least there's a concession

He was still up there, the show, on top, it didn't matter where he pitched

As long as he stayed healthy, he wasn't getting ditched

But one day he, on three days rest felt a twinge in his left arm

He pulled himself, and iced it, not doing any harm

But his pitching got erratic, speed was gone and no control

It was then he got the phone call...he was going to the hole

They moved him down to rehab some in AA across the state

He knew with no improvement that this would be his fate

Two years down here and then again, a new kid came along

Sorry, but you're going down...that was a lonely song

Two years and then he moved on back out West just to see

He knew he still had some heat...throwing nearly ninety three

But control...no way at that speed, slow it down...they'd hit him hard

Once he dropped it under eighty...all the batters...they went yard

But still he kicked around some, working nights, coaching some

Then he got the call from Joplin, got to see if he was done

He showed up fit, and did his best but still just couldn't toss

He'd get the speed but no control, the plate it wouldn't cross

The team was just a throw back, small market and little park

But inside he had desire, this place lit in him a spark

There never were too many fans, eight hundred at the most

But when he took the mound there, he could feel his younger ghost

On nights he wasn't pitching, he played first and coached third base

On other nights, he sat around and sold programs round the place

He knew that soon the time would come, he knew his bubble'd burst

He didn't throw as fast to  home as these kids did to first

But now, with the suspension, and him getting pulled five straight

He knew he'd overstayed his welcome, he'd been here far too late

"The ball...Jim, Jim, the ball....was all he heard coach say

He was already in the dugout and he wasn't gonna stay

He packed up and he left the park, left his rooming house as well

He had nowhere to go to, and maybe just as well

But the next year he was out there slinging just like Jim could do"

He was selling peanuts and some ******* jack at a ball parkin Purdue

The game is in his soul you see, it's part of who he is

Like Gherig, Ruth, Diamaggio, like Peewee and The Dizz

He owes his life to baseball. even though he stayed too late

"If he'd just controlled his curveball"...the kid...coulda been great.

Abandoned baseball fields
and feedlots in my mind'
span the distance between
pastures and filling stations.
Games from childhood,
those small-town diamond-gatherings with pizza-
joint sponsored jerseys
and open outfields where
the ball could roll
                                forever
if you really got a hold of it.

Here, in this other steer-city', once more I play
Though my back is sore, my mind
remembers pushing through an inside-the park
run home.
It rolled and rolled while I tripped on each corner
of those three plastic safe squares.
I saw the tom-boy with short hair behind the dugout
and asked her if she saw--
that night I thought she came to see me--
perhaps she might have known.
I have, not since then.

Shoeless, I meander on this base-path
holding my hands on my sides
to feel the parts my neighbor girl had
told me made the other boys
men; this distinction
what is good and what is not
was presented to me by foolish children, still
trying to become women-- AM I NOT A MAN!

I scream.

Somehow, these parts hang from my body,
supported by my well-toned calves--
My ankles, *****! My ankles are fine with
and without shoes.
Are the friendship bracelets from boys
that you got at camp in Colorado
not tattered by time now?
I have that trim abdomen you asked for
that triangle where my thighs converge with
torso, like you imagined theirs did
in the dark
while they were tasting all the
nothingness
inside you.

I can be like them, in my fantasy
of hitting the ball that rolls out toward yellow, singeing tallgrass
relieved by Summer evening thunderstorms which let me
ride quietly with my parents
in the backseat of our mom's pewter suburban,
with a box of kleenex always part-empty
crumpled beneath the passenger seat I sat behind.
My younger sister looked at the floor
while I saw
through our countryside with clear-gray
thoughtfulness and ease.

Instead of leaving from home, today,
I started on first base, in the park,
where I walked through
the right-field boundary without
consternation.
Look at strangers on the sidewalk,
and call my shot were they to take my things.
I feel my toes dig into dirt where no holes or even
placeholders were left to chance
vandalism or theft, I suppose.
I'm a thief, stealing seconds with my
piroueting-silence--
punctuated by mindless cylinders, pulsating.
Motorcycles are what they have; men.
Now, what she’s looking for, that girl which is
every woman.

(My bike is still there, I notice, taking an imaginary lead.)

A man with work and maybe a sense
of humor
that makes me roll my eyes.
But she thinks he's funny,
because she's simple, and-- after all-- she knows
those knees won't bend that way
                                       forever.
My adult work is walking, haggard, toward third
watching the adolescent couple running scared
from one another, when
minutes before they kissed; I laughed more loudly at them
than the garbage-fed birds who did roughly the same thing.

I walk toward home, where last Fall’s leaves
still loiter on the ground
that’s dug in
the way a timid batter would scrape earth,
cover his feet and wait to walk.
As a catcher, crouching behind a different kind
that afternoon, those older boys, with triangle-
torso-thighs and muscular limbs
came charging through me
and took my place
beside my girlfriend in the stands.

It was his motorbike that got there faster.

This is how home becomes crusted with dirt,
alternating apprehension and collision
must be wiped from the strike zone
Before I can wag fingers between
the legs to show exactly where to put it
in the top half of the ninth.
Those motorcycle-men don't get a whiff
of any pitch
or breezy desert air from down the chalky bluffs. In my hometown,
they may have felt a part in her that I could never be.
Dark drops beneath her sooty tail pipe
shades and forms are all I see.
But when I go inside, I still hear the echo
of car doors from my sister, mom and dad:

--thwack, Thwack. Thwack!

Each strike reverberating in the glove of our garage.
Every flimsy-ankled batter dispersed,
just like the infrequent pinging of our cooling engine
after the key has been removed. Lowering
a barrier, between the boys and men,
I watch wet cement like a warning track
backed by a white,
metal-reinforced plywood fence.
Through plexi-glass, I see that it came down
from the ceiling
the ordering presence of separation
suspended from my father's ceiling beams.
Solitary base-runner, stranded in this
half of the inning;
                            the home team
doesn't need to bat.
Still, she's rolling past me through thick, tall grass,
well-watered by a wetter climate,
in the empty fields at
Elmwood park this Spring.

She is a girl

She has two sisters, a dog
And a pair of worn-out headphones in her pocket

She is fifteen

She plays violin in the school orchestra
And sings duets in the sun

She is left-handed

She’s also pansexual
(Just thought you should know)

<><><>

She is a girl
(A different girl, mind you)

She has bright hair and dark eyes
And a sky of freckles spanning her body

She is a netball player

She listens to everything that’s said
And laughs at everything in response

She is an Aquarius

Her girlfriend is an Virgo
(Is this what they call diversity?)

<><><>

He is a boy

He is on the males’ baseball team
And recites prophetical speeches in the dugout

He is an early riser

He likes old-fashioned comedy movies
And his favourite colour is either orange or black

He is graduating next year

He’ll finally get to ask his school’s star pitcher to prom
(Finally is the right word)

<><><>

‘She’ is a boy
(A different boy, mind you)

‘She’ lives in the countryside
And travels 2 hours to campus each morning

‘She’ is a realist

‘She’ studies human relations
And has wanted to visit Rome since 'she' was eight

‘She’ is a part-time barista

‘She’ prefers the pronoun ‘he’
(No big deal if you forget though)

<><><>

They are people

They have people they love
And people who love them

They are people

They may have changed to you
And yet they haven’t changed to themselves

They are people
They are still people

<><><>

(Just thought you should know)

<><><>

Pretty soon I'm gonna wake up
in a ******* Summer heat wave,
sweating bullets down the barrel
of the **** I still can't handle.
                       (Like relation-
                       -ships or regret
                      managment or
                   barely making rent!)
I don't feel any different--
still a stupid, clumsy kid
swing-and-missing, striking out
and ******* breathing out my mouth
as I turn
           and I slouch
and shuffle back to the dugout.

I'M ON A RAFT ON LAKE DeSMET
IT'S GOT A FISH HOOK TEAR IN IT
I'M SINKING FAST
SO WHERE'S MY DAD!?
I ONLY SORTA-KINDA SWIM!
Only now the raft's a loan
for lessons learned that just won't float
and the lake's this ******* town,
my stupid habits and the time
I always waste on whiny frowns,
and hanging hats
               on embarrassing ****!

I'm 29 and I'm thinking
     that Catch-Up's just a game I'm not winning.
Under a pile of mail with a cheap grin,
cringe away and close the blinds
and I'm calling in sick--
yeah I'll call in again
if it'll spare me from the glaring truth.

I'm 29 for a week more.
     For fifty-two I swore not to keep score
with the scars from skinned up knees or my credit.
Lock the door and draw the blinds
and I'll call it a win--
yeah I'll call it a win
if it'll spare me from the glaring truth
                          *of a decade
                   containing my biggest loss.

I thought I’d be smited, right then and there

The red gravel spilling into the dugout

Was now plastic aquarium rocks

I was in a bowl, drowning underwater

It felt like drowning a lot of the time I was out there

Mostly because I was easily distracted and couldn’t play softball for ****

When Paige kissed me, I cried

Now, those pieces of red dirt
were a hellfire beneath me.

My religious upbringing was the kind that’s secretly stifling. The kind that permeates so deep that to act against it is to act against yourself.

This generational inherited catholic guilt.

The idea that I should be unimportant and unassuming and sinning was important in a bad way.

I knew I would only get one trip to the bathroom per service, I planned it carefully each week

So that it would take the most time

So I could stand in the great hall and twiddle my thumbs

As we were  forbidden to re-enter the chapel while the father was speaking

I am forbidden from many things as a child.

I’m forbidden from tears as if I’m not important enough to have them.

I am not stone and my tears are not blood. I am not a miracle. I am not a sight to behold. I am not a message from god.

I am not the prophetic ****** Mary in my mother’s dreams the night a relative passes.

I am not allowed to love without meaning.

When Paige kissed me I cried.

I had to tell everyone in t-ball that I was 5 when I was only 4 because my mother wanted me to start a year early.

I hid the sign up forms they gave us at school each year, but my mom would register me in person.

Every year she’d tell me, just one more year, this can be the last one.

This went on for nine years.

After I made my first communion. I asked to quit

I had to study five more years to make my confirmation sacrament, effectively promising I’d stay in the church,
before my mother would let me leave.

The irony was lost on her.

When Paige kissed me I cried.

What a cruel way to hurt someone. This was worse than the tripping, the taunting, the terrorizing.

Her tenderness.

I often wondered why she treated me as she did—I was already an ugly duckling, a left fielder, a loser.

Her mom was the coach, and she was the best on the team. They all listened to her, which meant they all hated me.

She’d call me a **** and pull my hair.

When paige kissed me, I cried

Why couldn’t it have been anyone else, why not natalie johnston

I never told anyone else, I decided it wasn’t my secret to share.

But I am tired of keeping secrets of what people who hate me did to my body.

Retrospectively, it’s easy to try to be flattered. I’m sure it was hard and weird for her to have those feelings.

I’m sure she expressed them as well as she could.

But I didn’t want Paige to kiss me.

I WANTED Paige to stop calling me a ****.

I wanted her get hit in the face with a softball

and I wanted it to shove her nose into her brain.

And I wanted her to die.

And

I prayed for her to die.

You were in the mezzanine
By the dugout of your favorite team
And when you tore your dress
They got it on the mega screen
Well, even the next day
After the attention went away
Your picture found its way
Into a girly magazine

Well, you did your walk of shame
And it became your name
But at least you got your 15 minutes
Of televison fame
On that summer day
Where your crotch was on display
And bad luck for the home team
Cause no one could watch the game

The cold dash in October
could break your ankle,
on some twig strewn iced river,
gusted by this uneasy Bravado.
And through this
we form a common bond
the strewn and promiser will led their merry dance.

It is better to shut your eyes and see again
and undream.
So rollick in the  dew,
the  resplendent  Samphires will regrow.
For were we not pre destined
to edge towards the tidal  marshes
and with dugout boats
voyage through the satisfied.
Tempus fugit awaits
to enrapture  our intricacies.

There lies a single dugout hole
In the middle of a vast field
Encompassed by a three-sided rock fence.
The hole is not big by any means,
No more than three feet in diameter.
However, it is notably deep
Deeper than any hole ever dug.

Once a week a strange man would walk
A dirt trail that leads straight to the hole.
He carried nothing but a shovel
And a head on his shoulders.
For as long as I could remember
This man climbed into the hole with his shovel
And the ensuing hours would lull on by
With every ***** full of dirt that turned to dust.

On occasion I would find myself watching.
Just staring out my window on my couch
Excogitating as to why he has been doing this.
Nobody owned the land he excavated
So he was never stopped or questioned.
Sometimes I tried to conjure the courage
To go out and question him
But I’d grown up believing the field was wraithlike.
There are a myriad of stories and myths.
Some said he was searching for something
Some said he was burying corpses
And scattering their limbs as he dug.
Some people even said he isn’t human
And he was just seeking a way home.

Biting my tongue, I couldn’t take it anymore
Without even a first thought
I decided to get up and trot to his hole.
I trotted to his hole and found his soul striking.
His weary appearance sent my eyes
Spinning senselessly like a slot machine.
Any man who spends his life digging
Doesn’t have the most particularly pleasing look,
But this man looked a bit older, lean, and forlorn.
His hands colorlessly cracked like paint on a wood pillar.
Skin so white, it was like he was cloaked in calluses.
Like I could pinch his epidermis
And it would feel like the iron of a furnace.
I took a quick glance at the entirety of his face,
His face looked ridden with defeat.
Then my eyes made way to his
I gazed into them and sensed confusion.
I saw a maze and a meandering man.
Trying not to make my look of shock evident
I finally asked him if he’d come out.
He kindly obliged and climbed on out.

“Just a single, simple question is what I have.”
“Go ahead and ask, I won’t be mad.”
“What are you doing digging this hole?”
“It’s simple, I’m enshrouding my emotions.”

Several weeks pass; I have not seen this man.
I’ve been contorting my brain in knots
Trying to comprehend his answer.
I just wanted to see him again to ask why.
Finally I decided to make one more trip out there
And followed the single dirt path to the hole
Only to find the hole had been filled, and a sign.
It simply read: “Don’t bury your emotions
They’ll eventually cave in on you.”

An hour goes by, and a raindrop falls,
I look up to the sky, while receiving no calls,
No texts from my lover, because she’s sound asleep,
So, what happens to me, I get lost in a dream…

I walk into school ten minutes after seven,
I sit down all alone and then I am beckoned,
Over to a kid who wants me to teach lessons,
Based on Japanese culture in a matter of seconds,
Cause school’s about to start and he didn’t study,
I couldn’t care less, I’m like, “Bro, I’m not your buddy.
Stop bothering me and stop trying to act funny,
Go ask your Asian sister, that *****, Mrs. Chun Lee,
She’s a smart Asian girl, so go ask her for advice,”
He just glares for a second and then he leaves my side,
I see my girl walk in the room and I’m quickly tongue-tied,
No words come out my mouth, but the mouth is open wide,
In-between inconceivable mumbles I kiss her,
But words aren’t enough to express how much I’ve missed her,
I feel so clingy wrapped around her like it’s Twister,
The guy from earlier walks by and has the ***** to diss her,
I slowly get up from my comfortable position,
Right hook to his face to remind him his decision,
Lacked any compassion and my perfect precision,
Broke his glasses in half, now in school that’s called division,
My math teacher walks by and quickly gives me an A,
The bell rings and my girl says, “I don’t wanna be late”,
I say, “But, baby… first period is our date.”
Too my surprise she takes my hand and says, “Okay”,
We walk to the dugout and find a bench to sit,
She sits on my lap and I feel her ****,
Keeps my hands warm, but not as warm as this:
She undoes her buckle and I go towards the ****,
Slipped under jeans and underneath the *******,
Feel her up everywhere, yeah, every nook and cranny,
A little bit of teasing, because that’s what she fancies,
After ******* quick, I ask if she can scan these,
Two big ***** and my six-inch ****,
She buckles her belt, gets up and checks a clock,
We got forty more minutes and now she’s looking shocked,
Cause I whipped it out fast and she eyes it like a hawk,
Cause it’s throbbing and hot and ready to be used,
I’m sitting there wide open, ready to be amused,
Like a magnet she lurches, and she’s quickly fused,
Mouth to ****, I said, “Slow down!”, but then she refused,
This girl has got it down and I’m soon to ***,
It feels so good that my mind goes dumb,
I start thrusting my hips and her eyes spun,
Back in her head and she’s choking on gum,
That’s exactly what it sounded like at least,
Until I convulsed a few times and then I ceased,
Cause I came and that **** had sprayed and then leaked,
Straight down the throat and my girl, she had shrieked,
A gurgle of a shriek, but a shriek nonetheless,
But you could see in her eyes that she had no regret,
As a matter of fact, she looked practically possessed,
Possessed with satisfaction upon my request,
We were both ready for round number two,
I pulled my pants down, she took off her shoes,
To take her pants off so I could abuse,
Her tight twitching **** with five-star reviews,
She hovered a second and slowly lowered down on,
My quickly recovered **** and then went to town on,
The **** like it was the only thing she could count on,
To bring her joy in this world, but then I turned the frown on,
Her face… well it was more of a hungry pout,
I steadied her body and told her all about,
Slow *** and its greatness, but she had doubted,
That it was that great, so she rerouted,
To rocket speed and I grabbed that ***,
I never thought that hips could move this fast,
I’ll tell you one thing though, this ******,
Could never in one thousand years ever surpass,
Any other experience, but I say that every time,
Cause *** with her is sure to be sublime,
Then after we finish, she likes to climb,
All over me while I tell her she’s mine,
Snuggles after *** is the greatest thing,
Cause you’re out of energy and just want to cling,
Closely to your partner and that’s all during,
The cooing and protecting and the safely securing,
Of my baby in my arms, it’s just the greatest,
Right after this happened, school was canceled,
I had to make sure my baby was happily handled,
I took her out to a movie and candlelit dinner,
At the end of the day I felt like a winner,
Her parents invited me over to spend the night,
I happily accepted with surprised delight,
They sent us too her room to get out of their hair,
And at this point, I was finally aware,
I was sadly dreaming, and my baby was still in France,
This figment of my imagination can’t get in my pants,
Sadly, I woke up misconstrued a few minutes later,
And thought to myself, definitely one of the greater,
Dreams I had in the past few nights,
Most of my dreams have been full of frights,
Nightmares come more often than not,
Now I had dreamt of my baby, I had got,
A taste of whatever was soon to come,
I laid back down, this time feeling numb,
Missing my baby with all of my heart,
Felt like I was being pulled apart,
Piece by piece with a small pair of plyers,
Fell asleep again and had a dream of a fire,
The fire burned everything including my baby,
This was a normal dream, the dreams that I hated,
I woke up quickly in an irritated sweat,
Got out of my bed which was soaking wet,
With sweat and *** and tears and drool,
I was unmotivated and out of fuel,
I walked to the closest road I could find,
Sadly, my mental health rapidly declined,
A car came at me and I thought it would stop,
But I was hit and dead without a second thought,
After this happened, I woke up again,
I was twenty-three years old. I swiftly sprung out of my sheets and studied my surroundings. I was in quite the stunning house and in the bed I had leapt out of, lay my silent sleeping sunshine, the love of my life, Mia. Now I had to ask the significant questions… am I still in a dream? In this specific reality, is Mia my girlfriend, wife, or perhaps a close friend that happened to stop by and passed out in my bed? And the most important question of them all… where did the poetry format go?

When I was a child,
Watching a wayward world through a lens of wonder and possibility,
Bound to an unusual captor of bats and gloves,
Reaching towards the rest of my life,
Over the head of the life I was already living,
I fell in love.
Not with a person or an object,
Nothing but a symbol of everlasting youth.
A team,
A place,
A game,
It was baseball.
Not just the game but everything that accompanied it,
A family,
Brothers becoming brothers.
A world,
The smells of trees and rain and concession stand hotdogs,
The sounds of a ball thudding into a catcher’s mitt and cheering fans,
The tastes of early morning Starbucks and corn nuts and bubble gum,
All of it stuck between basepaths,
Sitting on a bench in a dugout,
Spilled on the seats of my father’s car.

All of these little things,
All of the memories,
Just moments passed,
Lost in the depths of my mind,
Taunting me as I wish to return to them.
Although not yet old, I am older,
Reminiscing on the good and the bad of my youth.
I can still remember the veil of paralyzing loneliness,
Pierced by the family found in my brother’s team.
I remember the tears shed as I watched my father devoting his life to that team.
Those bad times were outshined by the good,
Team dinners in faraway towns,
Sunsets over outfield scoreboards,
Driving back to hotels in the dark with the windows down and classic rock blaring.
This is the way that I grew up,
Lonely but free,
Unhappy but secure,
In love with a thing that took so much from me,
Lasting Stockholm Syndrome bleeding from my life as it was to the life that I have.
I have lost this love,
No longer experience the ups and downs that can only be described as the reality of life.
I cannot weep over this lost love,
Cannot wallow,
Knowing that this is how it must be.
I must let go,
Grow up,
Get old,
Move on away from the family I found and the world I discovered,
Life doesn’t slow until it stops,
Barreling towards a hollow canyon,
Disappearing over a cliff to be covered by fistfuls of dirt,
Watered by the tears of loved ones left behind.
I must leave my love to rest before I lay in that hollow canyon.

Why must we grow up?
Grow out of our innocence and naivety, careless inexperience?
Why must we take for granted the memories of our youth?
Where do we retrieve them when our age returns to us and we miss the forgotten beauty of the world through a child’s eyes?
I wish the softness of the summer breeze would return to me,
Find me again in my days of regret,
In the sea of sorrow following me from my youth,
Sending waves crashing over my head.
I am not yet old, not yet wise,
But still, I mourn the loss of days past,
Loss of sweet summer softness,
Of the relentless rain ruining the chances I had of forgiving my father.

I have forgiven him since.
I forgave him like I forgave myself,
Regretfully.
I often miss that swirling storm of emotions I felt,
The loneliness, the worthlessness, the heart sickness.
So young and so filled with pain, balanced only by the Children of the Sun radiating from my chest.
Views of the maple-*******, the leather-launcher, the grenade-catcher,
Smells of earth and freedom,
Sounds of gentle violence, drawn-out intellectualism,
Overwhelming my senses and filling my days.
Those memories will follow me into the reaper’s grasp,
Rest with me in my eternal cradle.
Despite the storm, the pain, the sickness,
I dream of that cradle where the memories, the bitter and the sweet, will come together in the storm,
Meet like lightning and thunder,
And follow me into peace.
I am not yet old, but I long to be,
To once again feel my love and its infinite reach.

You know it's funny the things that leave an indelible mark on our lives! 2 times when I was 8 years old, a catastrophe landed square on me that still haunts me... almost 55 years later. Funnier still is how alone I feel in this, as I've never seen, or even heard of it happening to anyone else! Surely it must have, (punched someone in the metaphorical gut - besides me)  as this cannot be the one thing that makes me unique among human beings.  We played real baseball back then, not t-ball and because we ( my family) moved around a bit during those years; that town and field time dates itself as the  2nd or  3rd grade, so I was 8 or just turned 9 when life turned on me...twice!! With the benches filled with the enthusiastic, happy faces of cheering parents and friends, the hot lights in a perpetual battle with the cool night air of early spring, creating a foggy haze that hovered just over our heads like a gray wool blanket and added something to the crackling excitement of this rite of passage. I loved it all!  I loved it for the excitement and I loved it because it was mine ( all mine) not a hand me down shirt or pair of pants! It was the first thing in my life, that was mine!  Because I paid for It by sheer sweat and determination! Paid for with all the effort made that took me from the Siberia of the right field - that 1st year - to pitcher/ first base the next! Yes, I loved it all; and aided by an even swing and a penchant for meeting the pitch with the sweet spot of the bat, giving me status and accolades that I admit was to be loved as well! All that mutual love made the pain of... well you will see!
    I found myself on first base, by walk or a fair hit, where I'm sure I was leading off and taunting the pitcher; as were my teammates on 2nd and 3rd ( a fact guaranteed to promote to a higher level our taunts and threats of stealing a base!) Yes! but what base? What with them all occupied. Bases loaded was almost a no steal zone! So then, with the resounding crack of a good hit filling the crisp cool spring night, we all 3 began to move around the bases, pushed by the 1st base coach and aided by the one at 3rd ,who was like the traffic light in human form as he urged us to make a left turn and head for home, unless the light went to caution or red. That then was the time to obey ( without question ) the traffic laws of the ball field!  Sometimes the signal went to caution, slowing all progress as everyone waited for the ball to return from beyond the wool blanket!  At that age we had no more free will than the merry - go - round did ,or the kids aboard it did ,when suddenly hijacked and assaulted by bigger and stronger kids bent on turning  it into that momentary " hell ride " while they pushed and pulled together, creating enough momentum that you were too  scared to remain and.too scared to jump! As bad as that was back then, I would have taken it 100 times to 1 in avoiding the catastrophe and walk of shame dealt me then. , The runners, all but the one going from 1st to 2nd (me) were running toward a coach. The one at 3rd base, now with the caution light shining ,then flicking to red as he saw the ball appear from the glaring haze of lights to be an easy catch for the outfielder in question! Then, just as sudden , the red went to green and the race was back on, aided by a collision ( usually ) of those not calling out " mine"  or someone else not hearing it. From 1st to 2nd I had not been guided by a  coach, but as I was returning towards 1st. I could see him waving me in, only to start waving me off, yelling at me to go go go!!
Clear in my mind  - even now - is the scene I turned back to as I went towards second! To my left, I could see the kid round 3rd and head for home, with the traffic light behind him bouncing and swinging himself around like a happy 10 lb. dog with a 20 lb. tail! To my right I saw 2 players doing an Abbott and Costello routine as they scrambled around, bouncing off each other while trying to retrieve the ball, and there, straight in front of me I see the returning runner land back on second and stick there like a lawn dart! From the corner of my eye, I see the winner of the scramble fling the ball towards home plate, arriving just in time to not get the runner. And then...  there's me, standing 5 feet from second base; lost, confused, embarrassed, and boy am I *******!   Now ******, it's not fair! I followed the rules and obeyed the signals.
   No walk of shame is nice, no matter how much dignity one might portray, but at that age, under those hateful lights and the faces of those mean people on the bleachers, who keep staring at me... I'm sure I was crying as I walked that long walk back to the dugout!   2 times that happened to me that year. It wasn't fair, was not right, and in point of fact,  it was cruel and heartbreaking! Why else would it still permeate my life 55 years later.? Am I alone in this club and should I let it affect my memory so? IDK, because as far as I know, it's just a one-man club and no others for assimilation.
  No one else has paid the dues to join  - that I know of - but  I truly hope I am not alone here, Okay so It happened and it broke me at the time, yes it did that, but it; also prepared me for life, and armed me with the knowledge that sometimes we must endure the pain from doing " no wrong"!   That's where that dignity comes from, as we take the walk of ( undeserved ) shame, with head held high and caring not if anyone sees the gleam of tears... that may fill our eye!

Sweet wind that brings me desert dust and ashes
Or salty mist as blood on burning lips
Sweet wind that carries smells of roads and mountains
And rocks, and sands, and rusty wires, and tires,
And bullet-pierced sandbags, mines, and empty tins
And holy thorns that grow through them
And hot, bleak sky high over them
And dry, cracked clay embracing them
Sweet wind that brings me memories of war
Wind softly stroking dusty oleanders
And rushing all along the endless road
Wind –
Now tell me, when the land so lolls in sleepy peace –
Kids playing, women chatting, lovers dreaming,
Men building houses, furnishing, arranging –
All more fragile than cobweb lace
That busy housewives sweep away on sleepless daybreak
Sweet wind, tell me why I
I try to fill my mind with buzz and humdrum
Of knowledge – words, and thoughts, and numbers,
-- to stifle the voice, the shadow haunting me –
The voice that whispers softly, sweetly killing
To wake me up – to find myself again –
To send me far away where is my home:
To prison, madhouse, hospital, dodjo,
Wet dugout, earthquake rubble, secret lab
Where I belong, where all like me are going –
But still in vain,
For happiness, my prison guard and mate
Me torturing,
And happiness, the evil sheikh of nightmares,
His long, thin legs me strangling, hanging down
My shoulders,
His mud-brown hands me stopping ears, and eyes, and mouth –
And me
Who wanders through my days as empty rooms  
And endless corridors of giant fallout shelters
Where lonely steps reverberate in hollow hallways
And ruthless light
In which the shadow of my shadow
Me follows – counselor, and silent friend,
Unhurt by splinters of that broken magic mirror
That **** in air; may some benumb my heart
And let me play the game of words and numbers
That spells ETERNITY;
And let the sweet hashish of words and numbers
Make me forget;
Make me forgive, and live, and lie
That I believe the world of war will never come.

Countless poppies now grow
Where men had once stood,
Or had peered from a dugout,
Or had hidden in a wood,
Where bullets had hailed and
Young lives were squandered,
As poisoned gas smothered
And big guns thundered,
Those in charge must have surely
Questioned and pondered.

Poppies grow in peace now,
Gunfire no longer heard,
Let this be the case forever
For PEACE - is the golden word.

We sat in deck chairs, our feet entrenched in the sand,
as the water crept up the shore
and splashed gently on our toy sailboats.
The fire pit roared and rose with flames
under the moonlight. Our friendship was anchored
in the beach for years, since second grade.
I kept watch on your sailboat,
knowing it would soon cast out into the sea of adulthood.
We spent hours talking about our dreams,
as though the sandman truly existed
apart from
our imagination.

Remember when we dropped our textbooks in the trash compactor?
Because we believed in the Lost Generation and The Beats, and not some phonies from academia.  
We even sprinted away from the security guards after we used our slingshots and shot rocks at the The Verizon Center's Marquee.

Smoke and drink.
Smoke and drink.
Smoke and drink.

We lounged in the dugout while the sky poured buckets of rain on the baseball diamond, as our lighters ran out of fluid.

*

By accident, you shot me in the mouth with an air-soft gun. The beady plastic pellet zinged through the air, and sawed off half of my front tooth. Frantically, you sprinted inside and came back out with a glass of whole milk. You snagged the chipped up tooth from the lush lawn, and dropped it into glass. The tooth got swallowed up by the milk, leaving a trace of ripples.

But you had pure intentions, only lukewarm aim. On a porch chair, I sat bent over with my upper lip bundled with wet paper towels. There was no blood, no flesh wound; just a clean shot. I dabbed my tender gum gently with the damp towel.

You walked up to me and slapped me on the back. I shook my head, rolled the towel into a paper *** and chucked it at your nose.

You caught the projectile in mid-air and threw the afternoon’s remnants over the pointy picket fence. You turned around and saw my back, as I walked on the neighborhood sidewalk away from your house.

Ten years later, in the summer of 2007, we stretched out our limbs on Rehoboth beach and smoked headies out of a papier-mâché-looking piece; we called her Old Glory. As we toked and held in the gray coughs, we took in the view. Small waves barreled over and flattened out onto the fine sand shore. Our toes were tangled in the snare of the ivy green seaweed.

We didn’t want to let go of this.

This picture frame memory, the wooden frame lacquered with fresh pine comb.

A peace pipe shared between each other to rekindle their friendship. I stared at the bright fire of the lighter, watching as red sparks turn into violent black. Light gray debris collected on my swim trunks. We both looked up at the starless sky, as if we were searching for twilight. The moon glow shrunk the longer an eyeball looks, you said.

I nodded, got up, and walked right into a tall wave. I took the full force of the water, standing my ground with a bird’s nest chest. You laughed and lolled your head back off; you were exhausted.
I walked back up the hilly shore, and treaded my finger along the ridges of my ceramic tooth. A replica embedded in my mouth. I felt the jagged edges, the flaws, and grinned a little.

Just enough, to feel like I was on the verge of epiphany, on the beginning of seeking out the correct approach of life.

We hit the piece again. And the sun began to rise.
Our eyes closed, breaths quiet, and our memories entwined
for days to come.

silly fellow
with no fears
as he wallows
in his tears
with his head
in his hands
he thinks the dead
go to promised lands
he wishes for a brand new light
in the darkness of the night
he acts like he's fine...
when he's ugly inside
and he's drowning and he's burning
in an eternal flame
with no one else to place the blame
who does he sit with
besides his partner of understanding
who beats inside his heart
he will miss those
who he'll leave behind
who never knew what was going through his mind
they never knew how blind they really were
until now...
until the hidden feelings burst
and let out a scream for help
so silent to the emergence of the situation
what was wrong within his destiny
was it something he deserved
had he made a mistake
maybe
his doubt rages
an exclamating promise
an escalating bliss
...he ages...
and takes
and takes
and takes
until now...
until he can take no more
and his emotions explode through his skin
which has never been sincerely touched
or nurtured by a heart
he's collapsing from within
and no one's there to help him
he wants someone to talk to
just one simple ear to listen to his mind
which is so wide open
...he thinks...
the suicidal traffic trapped in his overloaded heart
is breaking him to pieces...part, by ever sweet part
his laughter is so credible
but nothing seems to work
someone knows his secret
sitting beneath the murk
he screams
(isn't anybody listening?)
and he thinks that maybe one person cares
but is this meticulous support
infinite within a power
do they know exactly
do they understand
yes
until now...
until he thought of a single reaction
to a significant amount
and started to take action
is he grown or changed or emerging from life
or dying, suffering from confusion and strife
...he dreams...
and tears run down his cheeks
so smooth with emotion
so corroded with fear
everyone seems to be after him
he thinks so differently
a mutated thought he has caught
they never imagined he would do the unthinkable
until now...
he has no privacy
not even in his own world
his own world is shutting down
he's running...and running
and running out of places to run
and hide
he's screaming to no oblivion
it shot up his spine
and he never thought the courage would build
but it has and it has
until now...
now it's crumbling
and so is he
down down down
into the ground
melting
his life is melting
they didn't see it
they'll die not knowing why
they will die
and so will this world
and it's wonderful creations
and its pointless means of happiness
which effects affect none but the love blind
and naive
his universe has crunched and shrunk
and shriveled into the earth
and dissolving is the soliloquy of his life
he changes his mind...
far too late
he looks ahead paralyzed
and falls into his dugout
and lays forever
with never the fear of a second life
again drowning in tears
and fears
...of others...
he dies.
but not just for himself
or not
he would think...
and think...
but now he can't
his mind and heart are functions of the past
his cords of thought flew through
the highest of towers
his life sunk the deepest of waters
he realizes the forever love of these powers
the powers he could have let become
the talents and beauty he could have let create
but now his creation says no
and so does his fate
and so do their screams
but now it is silent
and everyone hears the echo of the scream
they wish they had heard.

Earth's satellite-- bloated and hung.
                  And there you were out of sight.
                  An accidental prize tucked in the crevice of tomorrow.
                  A lethal burrow abundant with barbed avowals.
In a sick dugout flourishing with axiom; an infestation.
You were;
                 The space tucked in a dream.
                 The conductor.
                 The lout existing in the basement.
                 The brute in love with disdain.
Plucking circumflex arteries- clumsy, unskilled.
Your mouth is a watering can.
Vena cava, then the right atrium.
Body parts for guitar strings.
I unravel and you're amused.
The exercise of reason, the functioning of the intellect.
Silence always stings.
                                     It feasts on the bone marrow.
                                     In the cracks of the asphalt,
                                     There you are again.
                                     Like a thief.
The Viper.
The hurricane smile I believed in.
Use me up and hang me out to dry with all the other bankrupt *****.
I'll still be dormant in the eye of your assault.

during my fifteen-minute break at work,
I saw a sleeping bag in the dugout of a baseball field.
it’s almost autumn now.
too cold for whomever this belongs to.

I leave a post-it note
asking what his name is.
my break is over so I go back to work.

the next day, I check for a response
and it’s in the garbage.
I take it out and put it back with the sleeping bag
I can wait.

the day after that I check,
it says “Doug”.
I grab a notebook and introduce myself,
“hi Doug, I’m Tanner. can I get you anything?”

the next day, “anything would help.”
“I’ll bring some back warmers you can use at night
in your sleeping bag.  they’re like regular hand warmers but bigger.”
later that night, after my shift,
i do

this goes on for a while.
I’ll ask him if he needs food,
I’ll bring granola bars.
I’ll ask if he needs light,
I’ll bring a battery-powered lantern.

I ask him what he’ll do when the snow comes
I get a simple response, “I have somwhere to go.”
his spelling isn’t that great.
I ask, “where?”
no response the next day.

I think about him now.
figured I’d ask him how he got to be homeless.
he said he came to town when his father got sick,
said he lost his job for leaving.
eventually, he ran out of money.

I leave a twenty in the notebook.
the next day it reads, “thank you.”
a little bit into winter I still saw his bag
and we still exchanged notes, never once seeing each other.

one day in the middle of winter, I notice his bag is gone.
the notebook isn’t so I hide it under the dugout bench.
winter passes, I still haven’t seen him.

it’s finally spring, still no sign of him.
summer comes along, nothing
little league baseball is starting
the kids found the notebook
and ripped out every single page we ever shared,
shredding each one into tiny illegible pieces
thrown away in the trash can.

I’ll never see Doug again.

Why do we need to redeem ourselves?
To know one and to cherish one
To live thy life that we solely covet
No turning back, only now

Moles are blind and see no light
But they find their way
Carving mud and dust to get
To one’s itinerary

Paving their ways through filth
But they find their way
With warrens, dug in and dugout
And trusting their grit and snout

Working their way through lands
But they find their way
Through hard work with their two bare hands
Burrowing and Burrowing

Heroes and heroine
Harrowing and harrowing, but not like blind moles
Worry, why? Aren’t you much precious than them, darling?
With gift of sight, to see one’s light

there was once a brick hearth
and my skinned kneed,
wild flaxen haired,
innocent self would sit there
to feel the fire’s warmth radiating through the stones.

there were ghost stories told
on picnic tables at state parks where
the calloused barefeet of my childhood
struck the dusty ground as i ran towards
not away
when i followed vitreous streams
with frigid soaked clothes clinging to my skin
all the way to the  river who now holds these memories
for me.

there was a sprawling old mimosa tree
whose diaphanous flowers would float
feathery petals
to decay on the ground.
How that tree must be a part of me somehow
from the scrapes my soft infantile skin
endured while trying to clamber up its branches
not for a moment tainting my insatiable appetite to explore.

there were steaming hot afternoon thunderstorms
a quotidian race home from the bowels
of the verdant green forest
dodging heavy raindrops
pregnant with the weight of coming years.

those years were the smell of fresh lighter wood
the acrid feel of smoke in the back of my throat
popsicles in the pool
and warm sun-kissed skin.

those times were blanket forts at sleep overs
the salt on sunflower seed shells
cracked in the dugout at softball games
they were the lilted drawl that curled comfortably
around eternal southern colloquialisms.
bike rides to get skittles and coke
at the gas station at the end of the street.
the wind in my hair as I careened down
what will always be known as
Thrill Hill

at some point my bike rusted
when was that?
the pool sat alone and unused
and evergreen forests became a passing image
in a dream
scraped knees turned to razor slices.
but my body will always carry the recollection.

on the day my sister was born,
my dad took me to a minor league baseball game.

i watched the pitcher as he chewed the
pitcher’s mound to shreds with the teeth
of his stride. the ball combed the air, taking with it debris from the kind of sad people
who show up to watch short-a ball
while somewhere, a little girl is
dragging out her claws and staking her
claim on the operating table.

my older brother littered the yard with
bottle caps. this stadium was his dream.
he would have slept in the unheated walls
for a chance to touch all 216 stitches
with two perfect hands.

the batters today are fooled by
a series of nasty changeups that
cough their hearts up. peanut
butter and jelly awaits them in the
dugout. a couple of halfhearted
diehards keep score on the back
of their wrists, the pen tying up
their veins. the pitcher authors
the whole game like that, a painful
rush.

i want to leave. the kind of
faultless art makes me sick. he
was born in uniform, certainly,
and glowing, his arm whipping
around from the womb and tossing
out any notion of normalcy his parents
may have held. nobody can touch him.
he never cut his feet on old
beer caps in a quest to touch
a patchwork god.

the next hitter becomes a runner
when his hands take his heart
around the block and come back
with a ball cutting the air, colliding
with a meteor that surely would have
destroyed the world. someday on a
faraway planet they will see that ball
bouncing through the stars, restless as
the man who drove it. that spot on the
atmosphere may never recover from its
brush with non-destiny.

nobody dreams in the minor leagues, not even
the batter-runner whose arms have just
propelled his team to a spot above
heaven. god will surely collapse them soon.

there is a girl somewhere, being bathed
by a stranger. she has ceased to be dead.
a miracle for certain.

Do you still think about me
when your car hums
past the baseball field
and beats toward the twilight?

Can you hear my smile
when the sun is melting into your favorite
flavor of summertime sorbet?

-

I remember when
we used to summit the dugout
and watch the sky slow dance,

we held hands like our fingers
were sewn together,

and kissed in celebration
like we had reached
the peak of the world.

You taught me how to
write poems about love,
and my open chest cavity.

Since you left, I’ve been writing
about everything all at once.

About how the smoothness of your skin
brushes me awake in a bed in which I am alone,
how love tastes like jazz music
and fireball whiskey,
and about how pain leaves you gasping for air and
draws canyons under your eyes.

-

I don’t know how to forget
the palms of your hands
in my mom’s basement at 2 a.m.
or the sound of my heart as
I hung up the phone.

I don’t know how to forget
everything all at once.

Some people are born on third
and think they scored a triple

others are just happy to be single

I was born at home
and couldn't get on-base

I was caught looking
so I decided to take a walk
stealing to make it a double

but then I was forced out at third
because someone already lived there.

During this shutout
I look up at the scoreboard
which makes me want to score more

but the pitchers are warming up
and my destination is the dugout

praying for competent teammates
or extra innings
to carry me to another at-bat.