"pitching" poems
Stumbling into ancient scripts, authored a decades plus ago,
ago being a modifier of time quantities, minute or large, unspecific
without an objective adjective additive, that faucets a stream of an interlocutory elocution of a batter of rooted emotional histories,
but not histrionics
fanciful words for dredged up memories, acute, but tarnished,
powered yet worn by a cousin of ago, a/k/a,
age
and yet
renews as of,
at this very second, as if it were a first, a tumult of visions, swelling of remembrances, embodied scars, and I weep anew but not
for me, as much for the resonating simpatico souls with whom
they even now vibrate with resonance of the immediacy of
If not now, When?
Aside: The exterior environment is noisy wet pelting of thunderstorms and ****** sheets of bulleting rain, piercing projectiles, but I am safe in the sunroom, sadly happy my dog is no longer here to shiver and tremble, cuddle and be soothed by steady stroking
But I am here, wrestling with this dredging operation, digging up
tons of sand that require dumping, and I ask, inquire, beg:
Who will take this detritus off my hands, once more, now uncovered,
now recovered, the soil is already soaked and can absorb no more,
the soul is already soaked and can absorb no more, the weakened
heart, damaged and occluded, suffer cannot bare twice the
outrageous misfortune
of unbared recollections, twice, or thrice, and I feel myself drowning in revisiting pain, **** **** **** these old poems, not nuggets, but boulders dropping from night skies, shot from a pitching machine, without letup, piercing of agonies that once ago
freshly desecrated and decorated my basic training in humanity.
Enough whining:
*I wrote those poems to
eject out those pains,
and I write this now, once more,
to realize that so so many still face
uncertain and unrelenting similarities,
doing their own sums,
and I wish them easing,
strength to compose and
thereby dispose of
the ineloquent
and eloquent
words of staining suffering*
3:30am
Thur
July 10
2025
Jul 16, 2025
Jul 16, 2025 at 5:39 PM UTC
Four blocks down,
A man who never gives the same name
Stands every day selling condoms
With Tiger’s face telling us to “Protect Our Wood”,
And next to him is the vendor where
I just bought my new favorite scarf.
His name is Lorenzo. He’s 6 foot 4,
Old school Italian, and after two months
I’ve yet to see him wear the same shoes twice.
Natalie played softball in high school.
She now owns a hot dog stand just outside
That I’ve seen fifty people wait in line for.
After a heartfelt conversation we had
On a certain rainy Thursday morning,
Natalie now throws me a free Polish sausage with peppers
Once in a while when I open my second story window.
She hasn’t missed once.
My one neighbor is a Latina grandmother named Sofia.
She brought her kids here illegally,
And they’ve since used their success
To cut all ties to dear old Mexico
And to her.
I eat with her once a week,
And we share cooking recipes
And small tales about life BNY
(Before New York).
There’s a homeless man downtown
Whose sign says “A quarter a day
Keeps my teeth off your leg”,
And ever since he’s proven it to me
I’ve dropped fifty cents a day,
Hoping for extra protection.
When my friends from college come to visit,
They were all curious about Lorenzo’s shoes
And Natalie’s pitching arm
And when Sofia’s daughter would show up
(Tyler had a thing for hispanic girls).
I never tried to explain, because
I never felt the need to know the answer myself.
All I cared about were Natalie’s smile,
Sofia’s homemade tortilla chips,
And how a guy like Lorenzo ended up in New York City selling scarves.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 2:03 PM UTC
With the start of the first inning
as the wind whistled through the tree's
Our short stop had his shoulder broke
and the fates blew in on the breeze
This team was a thorn in the side
of the Harding Presidents Club
It was on this night my son Tate
was scheduled to play as a sub
The kid pitching for North Union
hurled a cooking heater down field
You could hear that freight train coming
as it's hide was 'bout to be peeled
Their coach then rallied his talent
pressing their shoulders to the wheel
like natives dancing 'round a fire
driving devils who'd struck a deal
A death defying mid-air, catch
the bounding, ball tossed on the run
The Devil was in town this night
riding in on the setting sun
They dove and slid then nearly flew
as if the angels rode their backs
While running bases half possessed
plowing the field with cleated tracks
No one remembered the last time
that our team had beaten this bunch
That night they took the field in style
serving them all up for their lunch
,
The dice kept coming up seven
and oh prophetically so
When the sun had finally set
the score was seven to zero
Come ye father's follow your child
through the tough times every one
For the oft chance will someday come
when they will have finally won
Tate
© 2012 Tate Morgan
Written
April 12, 2014
Americans love the underdogs.
original
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1342622/
Original video poem of the same
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1354978/
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC
I am proud of myself for,
being a leader.
I am proud of myself for,
encouraging others.
I am proud of myself for,
pitching a great game.
I am proud of myself for,
catching 3 pop-ups in the field.
I am proud of myself for,
gathering my younger teamates
in the pitchers circle when the field's
lights went out.
I am proud of myself for,
playing softball and
never giving up.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 9:38 AM UTC
for Nick and Kaitie
1.
Yesterday, right when our call got dropped,
I was going to tell you something about marriage.
I was going to tell you something gnomic,
a maxim worth getting engraved.
I've since forgotten,
but I believe it was akin to saying that, like Truth,
marriage is impossible to define in verbal space.
So, I guess I'm glad I forgot. The words
would've seemed either too hastily conceived for their subject matter
or else weightless, enigmatic – without impact.
I think it was Auden who whined, “Marriage is rarely bliss,”
though he lightened the phrase by encapsulating it in the context of modern physics –
namely, at least it has the ability to take place,
and that should be enough to bring bliss equal to Buddha’s Emptiness.
So, I'm happy our call got
dropped,
for the dial tone was
the pithiest aphorism on marriage any sentient life could've produced.
The key word is “produced.”
2.
This is what marriage is not:
Socrates gurgling hemlock
on his dusty prison cot,
giggling as he glimpsed a dikast’s deformed ****
Nietzsche tenured for philology
at Basel; Nietzsche feverishly etching
Fick diese scheiße! on a Jena clinic's wall; biology
predetermining the team for which he was pitching;
a poem; a hotdog; *******
a discharged Kalashnikov
engendering generational pain
somewhere in Saratov
circa 1942;
this is what marriage is not:
hatred, jealousy, ballyhoo,
obsessive yearnings for a yacht;
this is what marriage is not:
anything one pair of hands has wrought.
August 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 8:29 PM UTC
There's a nail,
he's set up camp in my brain.
Hammered with daylight,
held infuriatingly fast by night.
Even the stiffest claw
would be of no use,
not anymore.
His presence would herald slumber,
were I of a normal stock.
But no. He brings attention to
the tick. The tock.
If I inch him further,
with fervour,
maybe he will abdicate,
adjacent to his entry.
But I know he'll return,
pitching by the morn,
leaving my rest
completely,
utterly,
torn.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 9:27 PM UTC
Three days, is what the HR rep said, somewhat sheepishly,
As if she was fully aware that boxing up one’s grief
In a span of a few dozen hours
Is a matter of wishful thinking
And certainly she sympathizes
(Indeed, as she speaks,
She spreads her hands in such a way
As you half expect doves to come forth in full flight)
Empathy being their stock in trade,
But the law and the handbook say three days,
And then you need to have your head
******* back on and looking forward.
Eventually, the mail brings fewer envelopes
Marked with embossed flowers
And subdued and tasteful stamps,
The usual flow of solicitous inquiries,
Pre-stamped and pre-sorted,
Inquiring as to your credit needs,
The condition of your windows and siding,
Resumes apace, and more than once,
In fits of inappropriate black humor and frustration,
You scribble, in bold thick strokes of a marker,
The addressee no longer resides at this location.
You return to nine-to-five,
Though your ghosts keep their own hours,
Stopping by to visit on their own schedule alone,
Prompted by the tiniest of things:
The dog scampering to its feet in a hurry,
As if someone was at the door,
The discovery of a long-unused pitching wedge
Standing expectantly in the back of the closet,
A song from long ago which was beloved
When you lived in the pairing mandated by Noah
Before you entered the shadow world of ones and nones.
Sometimes you give into the giddy madness,
And rise to waltz around the room,
Careening about unsteadily, clumsily
As you have yet to completely master
The difference in weight shift and distribution
That is required of a solo act.
The timing of these visitations
Often disrupts your schedule and sleep patterns,
And you think that perhaps tomorrow you’ll call in.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 10:38 AM UTC
Byron and I play
The All Topics Open.
Eighteen holes
Invariably draws nostalgic.
Byron mentioned he went to the WWF in Detroit.
I sliced into a childhood memory
Of midgets at Cobo Hall:
Cobo Hall, Saturday Night. Be there!
Byron started pitching old wrestlers and holds:
Leaping Larry Shane, great with the Anaconda Vice;
Killer Kowalski vs. Bobo Brazil, pinned by the Crucifix and Abdominal Stretch;
**** the Bruiser* tagging with The Sheik
To defeat Gorgeous George and Crybaby McCarthy.
Byron went on in detail, with tabernacle authority:
“It was a Bear Hug that quickly swung in to a Quarter,
then Half,
then Full Nelson;
Crybaby bounced off a knee,
Was driven to the mat and pinned
By a Front Sleeper.”
(Jimmy's newborn picture faded in,
and the pose he naturally struck
baby arms
cocked like a sideshow muscle man
Daddy quipped: **** the Bruiser*.
I was Leaping Larry Shane.
Daddy quipped: Larry the Stooge.
I didn't see that move)
Byron was intense. I could hear, but
I was zoning.
Crybaby and Front Sleeper dazed me.
How time Venns.
I was pinned today.
I recognized the feeling.
Tagged, then pinned by
The inescapable
Baby Nelson.
You know the hold.
On your back.
Baby on chest, face down.
Pinned.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 10:05 AM UTC
~ one more for patty m. ~
slept late after dancing with my devils, from,
from the wee, until a pealing pearl from the Earl of Dawn,
recovering from an intrusion~invasion~brain~regurgitation,
and it’s nearly 9am, sipping my first cuppa Hawaiian,
& woke to a repost of a ten year old wondering plea(1)
makes me think “This old thing,” poem, like a fav
frock/suit that still drapes perfectly, and yet draws the
***** admiration and drippy drawling yummy compliments,
gracefully, gratefully demurred with them three words,
& it’s 8:39am, Bruce pitching in with “Born in the USA”
recipe for a new thank u Gawd poem to make room for
a fast~break diet for an old man with a rebuilt ticker, this
very emission~transmission of a verbal politesse writ going
some where, cooked on a medium slow burner fueling dressed up seeds of heartfelt appreciation made of ancient oat grasses
birthing a poem~child of thanks to the Lawd for one more day,
opportunity, the five sense’s delivery gratitude and gratifications, and the desire to intertwine the sights, music, a crisp blue November Sky, the need to bleed brew these words into a fulfilling,
second moment mug, for the pearls and Earls
of poetic humans
10:01am
Thu Nov 2 2023
Nov 2, 2023
Nov 2, 2023 at 10:16 AM UTC
The respite in soporific somnambulating,
Isn't the ****** of defenestration.
Apr 13, 2014
Apr 13, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
You nod towards
the mustang.
A yellow ball in your hands.
I smile and slip a bat from my softball bag.
I climb into the drivers seat,
sticking my tongue out at you.
You laugh and climb in.
I drive to the track and field combination
with the seatbelt alarm chiming the whole way.
I shift into park and climb out.
I swirl the bat around
waiting for you to set up your pitching stance.
You throw the ball and I line drive it by your face.
You dive left and up.
The ball smacks into your glove.
I round second and you start running after me.
I step off third and your arms trap me
as you spin around
bringing me down
on top of you.
We burst with laughter.
I miss these days.
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 10:44 AM UTC
Merry Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas Eve.
If I said holiday cheers one more time
it'd become redundant,
but to each of you
that chance upon this--
know that if I could
I would wish you a thousand splendid
Christmas Eves.
I would become the chain
children make in school
counting down the days till Christmas.
I'd become the warm smiles
with hands holding
even warmer coco
to keep you toasty; tis the season.
I'd bring fresh pine scent
and logs for the fire,
these will be here
to bring the aura of the holidays to your home.
I may not be a rich man,
more near to those you see
pitching for spare change;
this would never stop me
from finding you a gift to cherish.
I would give you all the time
you ever wanted and needed,
because I know that around the holidays
we all need a little bit more care.
Merry Christmas Eve.
Dec 24, 2018
Dec 24, 2018 at 8:17 AM UTC
Will my misery entertain?
Will he salivate at the prospects and their resulting effects?
Joy, he wouldn't contain.
"Oh girl, the things I could do." He did almost coo.
"I want you to remember this encounter long after I'm through."
"With fire, you chose to play. Such a childish fool, one only gets burnt that way."
Why does my creativity choose to bloom?
Why does it grow as I contemplate delving into the darkness, pitching my tent in the blackness, amongst all of the doom and gloom?
Will my soul be efficiently sort out and collected for The Man In Red to consume?
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 10:58 AM UTC
Anchor
My Love is an anchor
I am a ship unsteady
Yawling and pitching in a sea of uncertainty
But I have a secret anchor
Deep within my hold
Deep within me
He is my anchor
He is my my point of blue
My secret
He locks hard
He locks true
He is forever my point of blue..
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 6:04 PM UTC
Today we tend to the bones of our ancestors.
Stand in the field,
Amongst thousands,
But all that is seen is a note,
Giving thanks to those
On whose shoulders we are ****** upon,
On whose shared experience, we sprout forth.
What is left behind withers,
And what is left behind thrives.
Your legacy lives through me.
And I love you
I love you,
I love you.
And I miss you.
Being here makes me wish,
Wish for something beyond this.
You always told me
‘Life is more interesting
When you look up.’
So here I lay
Pitching glances toward the stars
For solace may be found through them.
Time passes and I am to think
Perhaps they are no longer stars,
But openings to the heavens,
Where your light pours through
And I am bathed by the glow.
As if to tell me that I have yet to have lived,
And to see the path ahead,
I simply need turn to those who mapped it.
For every wrong turn
Is marked by a star.
So to seek solace in them,
Is just asking for directions.
For a while,
For a fleeting second,
I know what it is like to be reunited.
And it is comforting.
Being here,
I am stripped of distractions
And I am free.
One day I will join you,
And share with you what you have taught me.
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 6:25 AM UTC
Well I like the taste of Whiskey, but today it was just a disguise.
The reason I’ve been drinking, Is because she said goodbye.
She turned away from me and she walked right straight to him.
So I called up my 3 amigos Johnny, Jack and Jim.
Chorus
Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels and Good old Jim Beam,
Whenever I need them, they’re here for me,
They’ll drown out the hurt and dry up the tears,
And do in one glass, what takes 15 beers.
So I don’t drink Bud, Miller or Coors light,
I go straight for the whiskey and knock it out right.
So I got in my truck and headed for the creek
Pulled out my pole and I started a streak
15 bass and a couple of brim
Then I started thinking about her and him
Her in his arms in the back of the truck
I started damning all of my luck
Walked to the yeti and popped open the top
Nothing in there that would make it stop
Drove to the house and opened the door
Those three bottles where there on the floor.
Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels and Good old Jim Beam,
Whenever I need them, they’re here for me,
They’ll drown out the hurt and dry up the tears,
And do in one glass, what takes 15 beers.
So I don’t drink bud, miller or Coors light
I go straight for the whiskey and knock it out right.
Woke up in the morning with the light creeping in
Sitting in the chair right where I had been
Phone started ringing; my head was pitching a fit
Recognized the number, so I answered it
She said she was sorry and that she had been wrong
She started crying, saying she wasn’t strong
I’d heard enough, I was trying to mend
I told her no, goodbye, so I pressed end
Sat back down, phone ringing again
Decided to spend some more time with my men
Reached on down picked em up off the floor
One more time I wouldn’t need her no more
Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels and Good old Jim Beam,
Whenever I need them, they’re here for me,
They’ll drown out the hurt and dry up the tears,
And do in one glass, what takes 15 beers.
So I don’t drink bud, miller or Coors light
I go straight for the whiskey and knock it out right.
Sep 17, 2016
Sep 17, 2016 at 10:02 PM UTC
Every Picture Tells a Story
concerned mother scolding her child
the roaring of the crowd gone wild
the melting sun setting into the sea
an old drunk in the bushes taking a ***
a weeping soldier sitting on his helmet
standing in line waiting for a permit
pitching a tent in a national park
searching for your dog in the dark
migrant workers tending a garden
prisoner of the state pleading for a pardon
solar flares lighting up the sky
licking your lips for that apple pie
city workers digging up the street
marathon runner with blisters on her feet
working the formula in an algebra class
sipping wine from a long stemmed glass
walking the streets looking for a job
toothless old man eating corn on the cob
loosing your home to a banker of greed
growing your future from a single seed
climbing a mountain all the way to the top
keeping the faith until you're about to drop
going out in a blaze of glory
you can find a picture in every story
Morpheus aka Gomer LePoet...
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 9:06 AM UTC
The echoes of silence whisper
Before you first kiss her
And the cruel love vender
Tempts you with splendor.
With a touch so tender
An elephant won’t remember.
What’s to remember?
After the three words she’ll whisper
With a look so tender
Directions to kiss her
And feeling of splendor
From this stomach butterfly vender.
The memory vender
Will cause you to constantly remember
The way she makes you feel splendor.
Sorrow is at a whisper
And it’s silent when you kiss her
And lock hands tight and tender.
Love is a butterfly beautiful and tender,
Sold carefully by a careless vender.
Pitching his sale every time you kiss her
With his silver tongue you won’t remember,
Love can hurt, cuts can be made out of a whisper
But even roses have thorns and sorrow its splendor.
How come I feel splendor
When my words touch tender
Like the hand of a whisper
And the feel good vendor
Sales. She’ll always remember
The way you make her feel when you kiss her.
So never forget to kiss her.
Because it makes her feel splendor
And will make you both remember
Through the touch so tender,
Why you sought out the cruel love vendor
And can’t keep your three words at a whisper
So kiss her tender,
Serenade her with splendor and be the vendor.
Make her remember the echoes of silence whisper.
May 19, 2012
May 19, 2012 at 2:45 AM UTC
Ignorance is bliss;
Sweeter than any kiss.
It’s an unfair kind of careless care.
This idea of something you missed,
Where?
A tear which never needed to be known,
There. In the mirror. Wipe away the smudges and it becomes visible,
Clearer. Shown in a smile that some would call naive. But you don’t because Ignorance is richer.
Your ears burn bright but you believe all is well, that all is right, so you continue your life like a phone in a theatre. Beating on the drum of negligence, perfectly pitching yourself as a heedless, harmonious heap; inauspiciously and ironically thinking ones self, misguidedly, meticulous. Inadvertently beautiful.
Ignorance is bliss.
Aug 10, 2018
Aug 10, 2018 at 9:38 PM UTC
my party hats have been hacking this green ****
pitching these ill bent ravens and Q-tips
jinxing the midday with famine
and lightning
a brite spot of bother and dead garlands...
hard garters and soft mottoes
murmured in wisdom of dimwits
a false lovely.
needing things kills
and kills often
god ponders yonder as we dismiss...
but taunt.
you gain a third world
to keep your clean mind soiled
in brine
to pickle the pickle
indeed.
and
you haven't any sugar
in your tea.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 2:15 PM UTC
sparrows have been around for as long as I can remember
sweet companions on all the roads of life travelled
but this time this flock of daily contact is the summit of all others
its me that has physically stopped still in my final pitching up place
and this little flock who will accompany me until my own final flight
Jul 22, 2014
Jul 22, 2014 at 9:26 AM UTC
Remembrance for a great man is this.
The newsies are pitching pennies.
And on the copper disk is the man's face.
Dead lover of boys, what do you ask for now?
1.6k
There isn't a He.
But if there was a He then
He made Everything perfect,
Which is to say
You, (if the world is You
And it is)
Then "just so and no better"
If there was a He to tell
I'd tell.
(You are so much blooming out of ***** streets
And camellia blossoms,
Everywhere I, there
The blinding You bursting out of
And flooding my blood with
And I am somehow Perfection's possession
Like a cutout pasted onto white
There are We and the faded world behind)
And if
He was then I'd tell him
He'd better give up now because nothing ever -
But You know I don't think
Any He could've thought up
(And the way Your cheeks fold when
Your teeth show and Your lips are
Just so and no better could ever)
Unthinkable thoughts
I've thought and never alone even alone
You were always somewhere thinking -
(Gods are not so clever
Or so kind)
Impossible for Him.
(But Beauty, You press
Words into me and I seize
Oh! fingers never gripped so
But clutching and You press and hold and
You are!
The birds in my chest are singing
The lightning in my muscles screaming
Love wears a face and it looks on me
And You are!
For all my pitching and whining
And still I open my eyes
And there is no Nothing there,
But You are, oh Love
You are.)
He never could,
But if He did I'd thank Him.
Dec 16, 2012
Dec 16, 2012 at 8:17 PM UTC