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ryyan May 2011
Once upon a time.
In a land far far away.
Their existed a rhyme,
About the greatest game ever played.
This is the said rhyme 
preserved from the acclaim the game has gained.
Passed on to generations about the game at it’s prime. 

A game that should be reclaimed from the fame its gained at the present time.
This game came from the brain of a person
who aimed to have the time of his life. 

Town ball was for all. In any season: spring, summer, winter, or fall.
Town ball was a ball for all: no despair, grief,  or strife, could spawn.
The rules were simple
Hit ball: bases touch all. 

Teams were never full. 
And the field could sprawl.
Everything was in play just like everyone could play.
No obstacle was in the way, no direction out of play.
Yet, according to the natural law of capitalistic America,
An evolution began to make money.
**** you Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet!!
You may have nothing to do with baseball, 

But you spawned the evilest idea of them all. 

That evolution is caused by natural law, 

and the evolution of baseball is the downfall of all that is America.
Baseball was at one time a game of fun; 

good times shared with one another under the sun. 

Eventually they agreed to decree the official rules, 

And it was not Abner Doubleday who would have the last say in history,
for that story is a myth that we should flee from like fools.
Instead it was Alexander Cartwright who penned the knickerbocker rules.
These rules spread to the rest of the clubs,
and eventually it was coined the New York game. 

No longer could anyone play but only the ones who could slug.
If you wanted to win, it would be a sin,
to put in the has been who brought the game shame.
This game spread during the civil war. 

In down time to escape they played for fun instead of being bored.
The game spread like never before,
and soon the game covered the entire eastern shore.
The N.A.A.B.B.P was formed and by 1867 four hundred teams were born,
and in 1870 the Chicago Cubs actually won!
They actually were good before 1908,
heck some people might even say they were great. 

I don’t mean to taint their slate or bait your hate.
I just wish to point out that its been some time since that date,
and you Cub fans still must await.
Meanwhile these gentleman clubs would compete in the heat,
for they wanted to prove they were the ones to beat. 

Yet promoters wanted money so they charged the food you eat.
Then they fenced in the meet.
No longer could you watch the teams compete from the street.
If you wanted to know who would defeat you must enter with a receipt
to show that you payed for your seat.
There you would meet, eat, and greet,
and keep track of the game on your score sheet
Eventually the wood frames turned to concrete

in order to hold more people inside their games.
And the players started to earn fame.
And eventually everyone knew their name.
No longer was the game a game for games sake,
instead it was meant to entertain the fame-craved.
All that matter was the money made at the gate,
and since then the game has never been the same.
Before players would score more and their would be less of a bore.
Fielders caught with their fingers the stingers thrown,
but for catchers that was absurd.

Before, fans would abhor to the idea of a fielder with a glove adorned,
but eventually the planted seed, grew steadily, and the fielders glove was born.
At first their was no web extended between the finger and thumb.
Because that would make it so easy to catch it would be just dumb. 

Yet, somehow the web spread and eventually it won. 

Now any *** could catch between finger and thumb
and the hand would not become numb.
This lead the dead ball era dread at the start of nineteen hundred.
And ego went to Owen Wilson’s head as he lead the league with triples.
Thirty six triples the record was set
and will never be broken it has been said.
But instead its embed into the unread
record book for others to go ahead and try to break with dread.
There were several reasons that lead to the dead ball.
First of all, the same ball was used until it started to unravel.
Second, was that you would draw a strike for every foul ball,
And lastly was the spit ball which would dance to any squall.
All these reasons made the pitchers un-hittable. 

And batters seeing their batting average fall
would take a bar crawl and bawl.
But then a savior came to us all. 

This man hit the ball so far that it would fall somewhere past Senegal.
The claims were esteemed that this man was best of them all. 

Yet, he was traded for money to fund a curtain call. 

This man’s name was George “the Babe” Herman Ruth. 

A pitcher turned outfielder because he was a great hitter is the truth.
The great bambino or Sultan of Swat,
nothing could stop him when he was hot. 

And he hit the dead ball era out of the park and it was forever lost. 

He had more home run’s as an individual, than any team,

Except for the Phillies who were good it seems.

Babe was the hit man

Pitcher he was no longer

The same change came

With this emphasis:
Babe Ruth symbolized what was

the rest of the game. 


They said pitch no more.
Sluggers are what fans adore
outfields became small. 


Power was the talk

Every team must have a guy
who hits with power. 


George “babe” Herman Ruth
and Lou Gehrig, the Yankee’s
became the very best.

Then the depression came and rained on the parade of the baseball game.
Yet, families with radio’s would listen to the games as a sort of hope. 

To escape from the world that they known. 

To escape to a game that reminded them of better days.
Then WWII came and stole away the players. 

Baseball’s talent level was now in multiple layers. 

and because of lack of talent Ted Williams batted over .400 percent
and Joe Dimaggio hit the ball again and again. 

for 56 consecutive games he hit the ball back to where it was sent.
Yet, eventually the players would return and baseball would mend. 

But not before the ladies got their own league. 

and men it did intrigue.
Is this for real?
Or a joke?
They would laugh.

Then they would choke. 

When they saw that this wasn’t just an act.
The girls continued,
“Everyone used to be able to play the good old town ball game!
“This is no longer town ball,” the men said, “the present game is not the same,
Instead its now played for money and fame.”

Oh how the good old days always change.

“Give us money” the women exclaimed,
“We’ll take your fortune we’ll take your fame!”

Some men said, “you complain! Its not the same,
you have to be good to play this game,
you can have your separate league if you need,
But this game of fame is only for white men of age!”

Oh how problems never change
Instead they always stay the same.
Yet, it wouldn’t be long
Before the trumpet would sing its song. 

That segregation would possibly end. 

Not for women but for African Americans. 

Segregation had always gone on. 

***** leagues rose up, but finally segregation’s time was gone 

due to a man named Jackie Robinson. 

And in 1947 he broke through with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Because his team was convinced they’d make more money by Lou Durocher
Yet it came with its troubles because Not everyone on the team was happy 
And some fans were just down right ******.
Some teams such as our beloved St.Louis Cardinals even threatened to strike. 

They were not going to play if Jackie played because they had that much dislike. 

But Jackie and the Dodgers pushed through all the hate that spewed. 

Other players, managers, and fans  were rude, crude and would start feuds. 
Then they would brood every time Jackie’s name the roster would include.
But after awhile people would conclude that he was actually very good.
And after review others would start to include rather than seclude,

But this integration was long over due.
30 years till segregation could be totally subdued.
The lessons we learn are hard ones that is true. 

And it takes awhile for an entire nations perspective to take a different mood.
Now with baseball integrated the game be televised. 

This allows the money in the game to rise. 

The league now expands west; 

New markets they must test.
But hey! the players want some of this. 

They want to start a free agency. 

But this is the last thing the owners need! 

But the players want to be able to move between teams.

The players want money. Oh how things never change.
But the players got what want. 

They now can negotiate and the owners this does haunt. 

The game now is wrapped inside this twisted shame of money. 

Thats all any body wants so they find ways to scheme. 

Thus steroids came to the scene. 

Players now could be payed more if they played well. 

This meant that to hit the ball far, big muscles they would have to build.
In order to get that edge over everyone else. 

These players used steroids to get their help. 

Yet that was not cool with the public 
Because steroids put you at risk. 

They are dangerous at best,
and the league didn’t want to run the risk. 

Plus what about records that have stood the time test?
Are they going be broken now and no longer exist?

All because someone drugs themselves to have a bigger biceps and chest?
Someone please lay this all to rest! 

Baseball today is such a shame. 

Its boring with all of the commercial and pitcher change breaks. 

Something needs to change. 

Because its been turned into a sideshow. 

Thats the only reason why kids even go. 

To see the park, get hot dogs,
and baseballs that when put in the dark they glow. 

Then when you get home. 

you ask them what they remember about the game 

and they say, “I don’t know”. 

This game used to be interesting. 

But now I find my channels flipping. 

Even Golf is more fun to watch. 

at least they hit that ball a lot!
Baseball should but I doubt ever will, 

Get rid of all the pitchers it has to refill. 

No more pitching changes; That would increase the thrill!

Maybe players could hit the ball if wasn’t coming 100 mph every throw. 

and instead of pure talent pitchers had to use strategy,
of when to and not to throw 

That 100mph hour fastball.
Get rid of the sideshow. 

Then maybe kids would go. 

Maybe then we’d go back to being enthralled. 

Back when Baseball was actually Baseball. 

But I doubt it will because money is what matters now.
Sideshows make money so its always going to be allowed.
But I’d like to disavow
I’d like to dropout. 

I never really watched it much in the first place. 

but now I know of a better game.
Oh and one final thing to say. 

We should just go back to town ball. 

That game sounds so much cooler than baseball. 

You could really make some unique obstacles

Put in a fountain or maybe even a wall.
It just sounds like a lot of fun. 

I plan to play it this summer some. 

Everyone will be welcome. 

And we’ll have fun under the sun. 

And it won’t really matter who will win. 

Because its about having fun, building character,
and growing relationships
The end.
you are a mirage of rain that wets minds slumber,
the spirit animal who guides me toward
connections that strengthen and nourish hope

I am the spirit of black holes
I am the shine of the stars
I am the secret of magnetism
I am the fulcrum of the universe
I am a seed of love

together we merge on the impermanent currents
detouring toward the serenity of eternities mind
together we become banks that contain the song of streams
we become the source of flow that makes the ocean feel fuller

Written by Nikunj & Sara Fielder © Oct 2016
There is understanding in the distance~
Space is transformed into perspective
where art can collide
between molecules of air

A spiritual canvas offers its soul
to the wings of birds
distant, but not separated
in a festive, karmic celebration

Thoughts glide in silken
synchronicity above two worlds,
as we dance inside the milky mansion
of clouds connecting us

Rainbows are birthed
as the clouds mizzle around~
nubivagant echoes soar
as we become a soaked song again

Written by Nikunj & Sara Fielder © Dec 2016
Nikunj Oct 2016
When the soul seeks
the song frozen in time,
Divinity obliges by
sending a few echoes down my path.

They reverberate across
the blue champagne
waves of inertia
to awaken reminiscences
of our harmonic rhythm.

Moments flow syllable like
to find a meaning
between the lines etched
on destiny's canvas as
a presence converges into resonance.

Every word is amplified together into
honest understanding breaking apart
the rational mind icebergs
that predominate love.
Cheetah clothing.
very risky.
bold, without being
a bit rancid.

character building,
with all the feral attributes
of athleticism.

I see it in your eyes,
unlike brainwashing which
was replaced by
globalization and
creepy frat bonfires.


There was a time I'd have
judged your new wife's
dress code. might have
called emergency services.

be happy that
I'm eating coconut mung
bean mochi by myself and
looking at your selfies online.

Full.

Written by Sara Fielder © Apr 2017
Nikunj Oct 2016
Let the whispers of Spring
adorn our way to the point
where rainbows kiss the crossroads
with a spiritual rain sprinkle.

Let every convoluted cloud
come apart to pour refreshment
on the ground work of intention
to nourish these labors with liquid love.

If only we could flow like sand grains
to the ocean's serenity,
Life could be a smile richer
while divine inertia soaks us.

Salty tears might fall awash
in it's grandeur, and consternation
lost in its immensity
upon it's rumpled surface
peace would percolate
sans the navigation of an evil hand...
The leaves are a
rustling surf of trees
as we wait for the
fireflies to ignite.
I am electrocuted by
the muted rush to live.

In the mud gourd corner
tawny frogs are hungry
for their father beneath
these jasmine clouds whose
scent is on the ironwork.
Words embezzle each another.

The dark comes in
for landing right behind
us. The moon witnesses
our truce in a moment
of silence. We address
her charity with
silvery gestures.

Sara Fielder © June 2018
Robin Carretti May 2018
Always_**
Days
Months
Up to our loved ones
necks
Getting callbacks
and lookbacks
Will I be
most likely rejected?
Until dusk to Dawn
The full moon turned
What will be expected?
Shoved mouth to mouth
brewed into the
Starbucks 

With any luck
It's hard to make
a buck $

The Dawn Lightning
Striking again wetter
Ridiculous remarks
and kicks
in the pants
He shoved
me into  a romance
But we never
ended up where
I wanted to go
*France*

The editorial the
Mediterranean
Slim chance rainbow diet

The villas of the exotic
flowers riot
Vacationer in vineyards
Grassy bear
Mr. Griswald
Vacation despair
Party pushovers
The sour cherries OOh!
La Wee Vacation,
The push and shove
What's up
Doc
_
*
The jilted Jump always
a stump
What-what
about the
President
Trump
Shoved me right
into
this poem
sonnet

Documents of
Vacations places
of memories
The Jack ***
Surrounded by
screwdriver

Or meeting the
screwballs
__

Or goofballs
Sesame Street parade
Big bird feast
His face climbed
Mount Everest

Dry mouth lips
((Frenchie Vermouth))

He's the
right fielder
The field Mr. Costner
on her left dreams
The toast all shoved
around the town
chauffeur

Don't shove me
inside
your world
vacation

Big problems not
like ordering
the best pizza
in Brooklyn
Memorial day
shoved into a soiree'

Unbelievable traffic
American Major
problem leagues
Upscale love signs
and graphics

To resolve this
Vacation big shots
The London
Hotshots
Society

At the worst time,
I had to do
Political speech
Don't shove
me or leave me

If you're not
going to please me
And not your
payroll to
tease me

He's next on the move
pushed to be shoved
I rose
I suppose
He shoved me
He gazed upon me
Like another ticket
to his vacation

He dazed with
his eyes
not to be loved
But all yummy
To take a bite
Apple strudel
pie
But dark ends
of petal
flowered bright
The last word
struggling  to
feel  shot

My payroll got me a raise
My own vacation
to myself big praise
to love me
Not to be pushed to
love someone

A vacation is to be
with someone that
treats you
on a pedestal
Don't shove me this
is my portal
Shoved around to get around but we need to be loved and somehow we don't want to be found when the game is not in your court. Who becomes the good sport
Vicious disco lightning
razor flashes slash
crescendo matching mood.
My medusa hair the
tops of tree tentacles
squirming.
I become machine gun
martini rain rapid burst
pelleting internal.
Anger won't wash
off patio insult.
Sweeping finality is
a storm migrating
with its mouth shut
against caring.

Sara Fielder © June 2018
Nat Lipstadt Aug 2013
Slide to Unlock

When inspiration is imprisoned,
insight,
a crime-of-no-passion victim,
strangled by codification,
clothed in a prison uniform,
where *uniform
be another word for a
poet's death sentence.

When dream interruptus,
is a nightly altercation,
a hellacious sensation,,
rolling of the dice,
rewarding the dreamer
with an not-so-good ending to his
falling sensation,
or, for an old school type (me),
the nightmare worst:

A world sans punctuation!

The truth about what haunts you,
in the valley of dried bones grows whiter,
even Vishvaksena and his armies
helpless, cannot eradicate.

Then, your  iPad reminds:

"Sir, sometimes you have to
Slide to Unlock!"

Slide to unlock the aggravations,
Let it out with disregard,
Let us know how you feel
When the constriction in the throat
From the things you can't say
Stops making you choke.

Truth is out of style,
common decency is a phrase
unused
or just abused.

The only difference between liar and fair,
a single letter and a
rearrangement of the facts
to suit yourself.

So I like you fine,
I like you better even,
now that it's ok to slide
beneath the fielder's tag
and get in your face and
unlock what rumbling around
in the ruins of my psyche,
ruminations about this and that,
released with a flourish and a rich
***** you!

But I like it, like you best
when in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness,
it's ok for me to politely inform you
to fk off!

So,
I do declare myself
unlocked
and in your face
booked!
Still uninspired...dug out another old one....bit of a mess, I agree
Oh how he loves Hannah
It surely does show
From the top of her head
To her tee-niney toes

She'll sit on his lap
And won't she be glad
When he asks who she loves
She can say, "You Grandad!"

Then Hannah leans over
And gives me a kiss
But makes sure it's something
That Grandad won't miss

It's part of the game
To taunt and to tease him
But deep in her heart
she knows it to please him

Then Grandad looks wounded
"Don't waste kisses!" he'll shout
"Save 'em all up for me!"
Then he puffs up and pouts

So she giggles and gives him
A sweet sideways glance
Revealing the love
That makes his heart dance

And we round the table
Can just watch with wonder
'Cause their love is stronger
Than lightning or thunder

Written by Sara Fielder © 1996
Jeremy Duff Mar 2013
I love baseball.
The smell of the grass, the crack of the bat, the pop of ball hitting mitt.
I love baseball.
The friendship, the camaraderie, the seed shells littering the ground.
I love baseball.
From behind home plate, to the on deck circle, to the bullpen in right center field.
I love the fist bumps I recieve, entering the dug out after a well placed sac-bunt.
I love the hollers and cheers when the ball flies over the fence.
I love seeing the other players and knowing they love the same things as me.
Standing on the top step of the dug out, impatiently waiting for my spot in the lineup.
I love watching my shortstop tag out runner after runner.
I love my pitcher hitting his spots and I love our left fielder diving for pop flies.
I love catching and blocking ***** in the dirt.
I love the bruises I find on my body after every game.
I love keeping my foot on home plate before throwing over to first on a double play.
I love seeing the lights and hearing the cheers, knowing they're for me, my team, my sport.
I love baseball.
Two asphalt patched lanes through
the plains bounce our transportation
like bunnies toward the lay of some lake
we wanna survey for fishin'~ just two
tumbleweeds reclaiming time, so we are
flying down the road and barely blink
at the rust bucket gas pump pit-stop  
hole in the road with 45 acre
land lots for sale on all sides as we
drive as dry as deadwood past
one car every 30 pastures
We left the 3 bladed Mercedes wind
generators Ginsu-ing wind
into sashimi current and a random
"Fireplace Restoration Specialist"
sign forgotten as fennel-****  
never knowing what might be over
the grain bin hill-crests next but, all in all
it was a spectacular day of espionage

Written by Sara Fielder © Sept 2016
At the drip droppy sloppy
Good lake of luck naughty
Nice chaps on their rafts are all cooked
Sporting SPF 30 with minds flirty *****
And bag lunches girls want to hook
It's the coconut crowd
Faking more than their *****
On a ***** cruising through water jade
Keeping truth from the ****
That they try to elude
Through a few beers of tan middle age

Written by Sara Fielder © July 2014
Rivulets of rain run off the
windshield wetting the tires
of my mandatory migraine
on a slick road to Memphis
The hours of tarred time warped
travel my graveyard heart has driven
a pilgrimage to rake away
a few years' worth of leaves
fallen on your ransomed resting place
where we've abandoned
you in solitude under the
cemetery sycamores with all
your carpenter memories
solemnly swearing to think
of you more often

Written by Sara Fielder © May 2015
Illumine me Mayan moon
As your sisters the sparkly stars
Fall like flares in the sky afar
While I lay on the beach in Tulum

I bathe in your milky glow
Soaking softly straight into my marrow
Entranced by the things I might borrow
From the light as your whiteness grows

Leather capes flitter over my head
The bats starving swarm from their tomb
Some seaweed and sand for a bed
I give you my heart thorns to prune

Then I puzzle a piece of your birth
In the Rubik's cube universe
With my will I can pull you to Earth
And our blanket of black is dispersed

Illumine me Mayan moon
Like Zirconia facets that twinkle
By allowing our essence to mingle
And then crumble me all into ruin

Written by Sara Fielder © Dec 2013
Describing our family requires a poem
For they fill me with feelings I never have known
Each moment I'm with them I'm given a gift
That touches my spirit and makes my heart lift
It's Goodness, and Patience, and Truth they inspire
The essence of Love, importantly dire
It's the rarest of families you ever will find
United as one for now and all time

The head of our household is someone so great
When I'm in his presence I've been known to shake
His quiet demeanor is just a disguise
A hint of the wisdom I know it belies
Whenever you prompt him he'll speak of his past
And lives every day as it were his last
Forever creating, his all and his best
Goes into his work in the shop or at desk
So kind and helpful to people in need
Faithful to God who planted the seed

The one that we look for when we need advice
The one who can help us with problems in life
A spiritual leader, a mother, a wife
Is wonderful Burbie, pure good, and all nice
A counselor of children by day at her work
At home in her duties she never will shirk
As hard as she works toward her goals and her dreams
It is nothing compared to her family creed
That the family's togetherness and all its withstood
Is the pathway for finding its most 'Highest Good'

Acquainted the longest, yet familiar the least
The oldest and furthest apart like some beast
A Spirit of Adventure he's traveled afar
(The same one that's put him behind the jail bars)
Is William the sailor who's clever as sin
Eternally searching for favorable winds
As gifted with wit as he is with his craft
(However, I'm certain he's totally daft)
Our ego and pride to us both is a curse
Still I can't help but love him for better or worse

Generous and giving in her kitchen she hovers
Wining and dining and doing for others
In her bounty of goodness there's never a limit
But the far reaching sky and everything in it
A healer that's caring and as smart as they come
That's sure of herself and won't be outdone
Appreciates nature and leisure and life
A diligent, dutiful, passionate wife
Pam is the model for all us to follow
Today in this moment, and every tomorrow

Fashion and glamour, not a hair out of place
And the make-up she wears on her Cover-Girl face
Is the exterior shell of the oyster that hides
The more shimmering, beautiful pearl that's inside
A heart of pure gold and silver and gem
Never failing to smile and ask how you've been
Whether out in the field or at home in her den
Val watches her children as an old mother hen
When her most favorite time of the year has arrived
To her end she will always keep Santa alive!

Service to others is her main endeavor
Not a favor for you she'll decline, no not ever
Outwardly willing and eager to please
She can handle most tasks with relative ease
With too much to do Amy rarely will sit
And lives all her years in one single minute
It's no wonder to me that there's hardly a feat
She can do with one hand whiles she asks 'When 'dwe eat? '
Not happy unless she can be at her best
Her life is but filled with meaning and zest

The day that you asked me to become your wife
Was the first day of many that have changed my whole life
For me there was no one until I found you
I could openly love with my heart and be true
Forward in life with our spirits entwined
We will travel the world where there's plenty to find
Loving each other with desire and need
Bonded by strength and the vows that we heed
Forever and always our love will endure
Like sunlight that's golden and water that's pure

Yes, it's the rarest of families you ever will find
United at one for now and all time...

Written by Sara Fielder © 1997
Emotions
Up and down
up and down
up and
d
o
w
n
like that **** with OCD
turning off and on the light switch
10 times then stepping backwards to
do a pirouette in reverse
before he leaves the house
Today,
you were my buttercup
Yesterday,
I wanted to saw off your head
and bury it in the backyard
next to the hamster
I forgot to give water to
I want to saw you up
my little buttercup

Written by Sara Fielder © Feb 2012
tonight she’s clipping her obstinate fingernails
healthy, hard and alone on her atoll of sofa
surrounded by a stony sea

automatically I look down; my deficient talons
at a loss and uncreative; thumbing the possibility
of courageously communicating with her complexity

******* the idea of getting close to her
beyond my standard compulsion to
use flattery, force a smile or be mutually inauthentic

leafing through the elementary school years
that predeceased her current level of intelligence
grappling with my empty handedness, and
finally locking us in on the folded faith of hopeful futures

Sara Fielder © Apr 2017
The Whisper May 2014
I started at the edge of my seat.
Subconsciously found my way to my feet.
I look at the mound, and then at the plate.
This is our chance.
Our one last hope.

He steps in the box with a glare at the mound.
First with the right,
And then with the left.
Bottom of the 9th with two men out.
Come on, batter, just relax.

Down by one with a man on first.
A tingle runs up and down my spine.
There goes a strike.
Now there's two.
Down to our last...

Then a ball comes through.
The count one and two.
Here comes another.
Now two and two.

A strike or a ball?
Only the pitcher knows for sure.
He winds his body up
And then follows through.

THWACK

This one's headed for the wall.
The crowd stares in awe as we look at the ball.
The fielder runs back, but stops at the track.
Before I knew it, he was touching em' all!

A fist in the air as he rounds first base.
He claps his hands as he rounds second.
When he reaches third he shakes someone's hand.
He touches home plate and I take off my hat.

**And that's how we won with one swing of the bat.
Old dried up and calloused hands
Lined like a sycamores round tree rings
Now with a paintbrush delicate swings
As time runs out of the hourglass sand
Thinking of the metal worn oily tools
Quiet now in the sawmill shoppe
Where they worked and
chiseled and planed nonstop
Asleep in the wooden box on the stool
Claw hammer hands with a lead keel weight
Arthritis pain through the white Bayer pill
Lightness fades and the hard night late
Bereaved when the fingers are permanent still


Written by Sara Fielder © July 2013
Written for a fellow poet that goes by the name of Leafsailor
a stranger sat in dad's chair at the head of the table,
a young soldier wrapped in bandages that leaked body fluid,
a possessed spectral that stared at the stuffing and gravy
on the Thanksgiving plate like a foreign
object he'd lost familiarity with, me wondering,
if dad might be home for Christmas

he was about the same age as mother,
though most veterans I'd seen seemed older,
as if they'd lost the map to heaven
and needed someone to
come along and help them find it

white gauze wound around his head,
so that only holes for his mouth and
faraway eyes showed,
the feeding utensils as obscure
to him as the blue sky outside

and when the day began to run out,
the serviceman's mind engaged in a different war
more bazaar than eating,
he said nothing when mother picked up a spoon
and fed him the way I would my dolls


Written by Sara Fielder © Sept 2014
Floating upon the crystal pond
She kept wearing her diamond crown
While the other white swan was gone

Never doubting their fierce loving bond
As the leaves went from reddish to brown
Floating upon the crystal pond

Her blue eyes searching far beyond
Couldn’t see that he’d recently drowned
While the other white swan was gone

So curling, becoming withdrawn
When ten suns in the sky settled down
Floating upon the crystal pond

She talked to the geese that were blond
And asked where he was with a frown
While the other white swan was gone

They cared not and didn’t respond
In the reeds was a kings golden crown
Floating upon the crystal pond
While the other white swan was gone

Written by Sara Fielder © Aug 2012
There is nowhere to stow my mental
and emotional machinery during the long
punctuated silent separations we bear--
Bound by some far flung forgotten
fantasy made with enthusiastic promise
Our hope spanned across the telescopic horizon
transporting our propositions to dreamscape reality
It all crumbles when your intent becomes sterilized
with programming and artificial attachments that
hold your heart prayer wheel prisoner
You begin to lower your standard
You begin to entertain Dark Age emptiness inside
your seven day diary devising a way to escape
while wandering from room to room

Written by Sara Fielder © June 2015
Far away far on the edge the sea
Are dripping forests wet with green
Leviathan minds swim wide asleep
And mermaids lock the sandcastle keep
While over it all the eye of the sun
Blends all the colors with coconut ***
Robin egg blue hues liquefy the sky
Splashed with streaks of tangerine dye
Hermit ***** wash their hair with sand
On land the toucans dance Can-Can
Chickadees twee in the cranberry tree
A hula girl's smile is permanent free
Far away far on the edge the sea
Are dripping forests wet with green

Written by Sara Fielder © Oct 2013
We hike Elk trail, just you and I
The sky a 1972 blue
Its ceiling stretches long and wide
Some cirrus sifted wisps there too

I keep my focus on the ground
As not to trip you up ahead
Loose granite making crunchy sounds
"More youth and stamina", I said

Then match my rhythm with your step
Remembering all my treks before
While you, a dream I hadn't met
Now fill them in with so much more

And when we reach the mountain top
An eagle keeps us company
Sun shadow times remaining clock
The signal that it's time to leave

I watch your lithesome limbs descend
And think in twenty years or more
You'll wish the daylight would not end
When with your daughter you explore

Written by Sara Fielder © Jan 2015
A day hike with my 15 yr. old daughter
i.

i have concluded
a deers neck is gangly,
never folding inward
when bulldozed by
an automobile

ii.

unknowingly, she was as dead as lead

iii.

the baby, whose mule-ish ears
poked out of the unmowed median must have
been born just moments before
camouflaged like sticky litter
thrown out the drivers window


Sara Fielder © June 2019
TOD HOWARD HAWKS Apr 2023
Maggie was my mother, my emotional mother.
She came into my life when I was in third grade.
She and her husband, Floyd, lived in the apartment
on the third floor of our house. My biological
mother was too depressed to be my emotional mother.
She spent every afternoon taking a nap from 1 to
4:30 and watched TV by herself in the living room
from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., then went upstairs to her own
bedroom and read detective paperbacks until about
3 a.m. So Maggie always fixed breakfast--two poached
eggs, grits, and two toasted and buttered slices of
wholewheat bread--for me every morning as I grew up.
Maggie also washed my ***** clothes, spanked me
when I need a spanking, and hugged me when I
needed a huge. I have never forgotten the time when
Maggie (I have no memory of my biological mother
ever being in my bedroom when I was in it) brought
me lunch when I was sick in bed with a cold, along with
an ice-cold bottle of Squirt. I remember loving the taste
of Squirt, which, for some unknown reason, I had never
tasted it before, nor was I ever going to taste it again.
Many, many times I would go up to the apartment around
dinner time when Floyd had gotten home from working
at the Santa Fe shops, knock on their door, and invariably
Maggie would say "Come in," even as she was cooking
dinner for Floyd and herself, because she knew it was
Tod. I sat with Floyd at their small kitchen table and
talked to him about, among other things, who we each
thought was the better center fielder, Willie Mays or
Mickey Mantle. I felt at home with Maggie and Floyd.
The two took my two sisters and me on occasion to
the drive-in to see a movie in their old car. What fun!
Maggie, a Black who had grown up in racist southern
Texas, was illiterate, but I was not conscious of it when
I was so young, and when I got older and knew Maggie
couldn't read or write, it didn't matter to me at all.
Maggie could love! That was the important thing.
I always felt loved when I was with Maggie. And Floyd,
even though he thought Mays was better than Mantle,
remained my friend for along time after Maggie had
passed away.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS
no let up from the scorching bat
the flogging is a bit too thick
where the fielder gets laid out flat
due to its fervent canning stick*

the flogging is a bit too thick
we've been struck by the boiling heat
due to its fervent canning stick
every day this is on the beat

we've been struck by the boiling heat
downed in a sixer's knocking hit
every day this is on the beat
which drains our energetic pit

downed in a sixer's knocking hit
due to its fervent canning stick
which drains our energetic pit
*the flogging is a bit too thick
Jet Dec 2020
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.
My cell is a remote,
and we are older than Latin.
In dreams, the brown shirts
press their kisses hard
against your absence.
Vaguely, I remember
what the crotch wants.

There are spans as ****
and clean as housekeeping.
This room reminds me
of tree carvings.
I'm an inch away from
when I might poke brave.

I'd like to take red-light
risks while turning down
the thermostat to freezing.
A wrinkled artist with a
thumb on words.
My hair is shattered without
your fingers to connect.

In a look the hood
comes off greasy
smiles and all. I remember
being a condemned vehicle
living vagrant by a thick
university of corpses.
Unsolved, at the foot
of a stairwell.

Sara Fielder © June 2018
These flowered hours slither over my bare breast
and granite bottom lying me flat against
the washing machine waves
chopping my rhyme and riddle in half
with butterfly laughter alongside
the sage scented shoreline
This is my happy hippy hollow heart
where I can hear the wind without sin
and am not underfoot of your ethical authorization
This is the place where fear goes into hiding
and souls are turned into spheres of jade

Written by Sara Fielder © July 2015
Hello god forsaken wasteland
of post-apocalyptic twigs for trees
as thirsty as buffalo chips
Dry as the wind
Dry as straw
crunching under my boots

Copper topped mountains
sighing without stamina
I **** blue from the nitrogen horizon
marching with the Spring to be reborn
Born of germ to graze
Born of energy that saves

on trails decidedly leading
toward a corridor of resignation
and inconspicuous succession

Written by Sara Fielder © Mar 2017
Red barn pony-
graze the straw
growing on
lone star soil.
Life is a gallop
and a kick against
your neighbors' deadwood.
Your master has
a swayback metal roof
to climb you on,
and a hundert year old
ground to plow for
nuthin'. In between
your velvet ears
all the world is
contained in a pack
of coyote yips.

Sara Fielder © June 2018
Come and sit your white collar consumerism
and freeze dried favors next to my
blue lesbian coffee table toes
I need a rest from all those vertigo verbs
and Spiderman action adjectives
Those home run stadium songs
that signal my miracle
You can help me with my career materials
and teach me how to tap your labyrinth
of time and space tower
We can play like we are best friends
Peeking through the window of our
oh my god neighbors just for kicks
and practice what we thought we saw
If you’ll loan me some vowels I’ll
share my amoeba salad with you
We are both about as lost as
two ***** in tall grass without each other

Written by Sara Fielder © June 2015
The kayak glides along with the quiet leaves
that ride upon the cold Canadian undercurrent
and I am surrounded by a canvas of carotenoid color
stamped on the still river bank while my mind
focuses on the plastic bobber willing it to move

All I need is just a nibble, just one small nibble
to set the hook in its lip and I'll be fired wide awake
like a shot of espresso falling backward from the
seat of minds lazy slumber and the numbing
contentedness of Autumn as she casts her hibernating
spell on me and the fish which are surely in agreement,
pocketed down deep in siesta as cold as
water sogged logs since they aren't biting

But there is a part of me that won't resign to the likelihood
that this time of year most likely has them puckered
up with barometric bulimia so I keep fishing,
and waiting, and hoping that my rod tip will bend
and fit me into the landscape like I belong

Written by Sara Fielder © Nov 2015
Speak to me thee wet
and lonesome lapping waves
Outrun evaporation of your grave
along this chiseled limestone shore
where you have passed
through distant bygone doors
Across the lake,
where terra cotta porticos
stand tall and dark eyed maidens
wait for men to call
with servant hearts,
and apron strings,
expecting all the good things life might bring
Explain to me the mystery of this place
The air is still; the sun upon my face,
weathering whiskered old men
leathered and tanned
who sell fresh fish from a wooden stand,
pausing to smell the cedars high on the hill
that long for a breath of winters chill
Oh, to be liquid just like you
and stare at it forever
through the eyes of a molecule

Written by Sara Fielder © July 2012
When I’m with your sweet iced tea and
lemon lounge room laughter,
your extended group gatherings
harboring honest harmony and
empowering personalities,
I begin to believe again that the truest
things in life are those that are intangible
I can almost feel my wallflower blooming into
your fully functional bouquet and want to
play like I am a part of this comforting
southern composition so please forgive
me if my wobbly heart seems
a little out of practice

Written by Sara Fielder © May 2015
I watch a wavering wind whisk through
Our crooked wooden gate
Sky's paper white, a weather coup
Shakes snow in sifted flakes

Strawberries buried shallow peek
Their crimson leaves ablaze
Plant sorcery in doublespeak
Contrasting with days gray

I hear the sacred six chimed song
The cold air orchestrates
To make my ears see feathered swan
Upon an ice glazed lake

I watch the hibernating trees
As naked to the bone
As hard cracked glaciers northern freeze
Can make one feel alone

I watch the feeders sway in time
With early morning's clock
Tuxedoed suits fly to this shrine
Seed shopping in small flocks

And in my house I feel unbound
From past life snowy qualms
And start to feel as free as they
Unsentimental calm


Written by Sara Fielder © Jan 2016
One
Our souls touch
across oceans of
time warped separation
to sip lotus tea
in nighttime nirvana
under a heart shaped archway
while we merge
into cosmic consciousness
and loves strength
goes unspoken

You illuminate
my illusion of self
forming a waterfall
of words that rescue,
so that insecurities sink
under indigo waves
and paper boat floating
hope miracles
are allowed to happen

Written by Sara Fielder © Dec 2015
Written for my friend Nikunj in Mumbai.

— The End —