"sandlot" poems
We should legit organize our own Celebrity Softball Game.
Play another Poetry Site
Or Intramural.
Show America a different side
of stardom.
Rent a sandlot.
Wolf starting pitcher,
Soul starting catcher.
Eliot umpires.
Everyone gets an At bat.
Instead of hating on each other,
Play together as a Team.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 12:02 AM UTC
Being the only one awake in the back seat, or the only one thinking loudly,
and in the back of your mind, sitting there like living weight, you've got
the giant Citgo sign
(you swear you could fit in the T),
listening to passion pit as the golden sun flings itself on the highway,
a construction worker lowering his pants in front of a dumpster,
hearing the sandlot play downstairs as you stare at the dark ceiling,
pizza you ate in the park the evening before now being had for breakfast,
finding out the **** is pro-choice,
getting your shoulder squeezed on a rollercoaster
by a boy who screams like a girl,
feeling drunk even though you're sober,
running through the dark,
passing trailers with round lanterns lining the tops,
outlining shirtless men and smoking women,
looking in the mirror after swimming with your clothes on
in a hot tub,
and you're not sure if you're
beautiful
or
disgusting.
Yeah, you can sleep now.
May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 at 7:12 PM UTC
Detroit
Lying in ruins like Ancient Rome
The gods of Detroit looking down
Ford wondering
Why cars are now made in china
Ty Cobb sobbing
Over the loss of his sandlot
Diego Rivera
Putting his hand down saying
Don't touch my **** mural
Eminem's eight mile vanishing
Joe Louis' palace tumbling down
Bell Isle being sold to the highest bidder
Who killed Detroit?
Let the finger pointing begin
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 10:15 PM UTC
There's a room somewhere,
locked fast behind an unassuming door
looming grey-brown at the end of a
misshapen corridor.
Inside, the relics of a time lost in time
to time.
A mitt, engraved with the counterfeit signature
of a ballplayer whose name once rang a bell,
smelling of adolescent sweat,
still dusted with sandlot crumbs,
a reminder of those ground *****
that sped by too fast to field,
those fly ***** just out of reach,
suspended in a June twilight
lost to time.
Ribbons and awards and certificates,
signed by leaders of puny regimes
paved and repaved over,
proof of a world before this,
an era of (now) perceived achievement,
legitimized, glorified by Old English type
printed on recyclable stock paper.
Ticket stubs from blockbuster flops,
receipts of a linear plotline:
Drama, comedy, a budding romance -
Temporarily amusing on such a spacious screen
but ultimately unfulfilling;
the plot peters towards the end.
Lost in time the boy cries out
with no one left to answer but the man
who, as quietly as he entered it,
exits the room,
as always, leaving the door just ajar,
enough to muffle the shrieks of a little boy
chasing an invisible horizon.
Oct 23, 2012
Oct 23, 2012 at 8:46 PM UTC
Go outside after breakfast
Come back for lunch at noon.
Come inside at suppertime
And even then, it was too soon.
Never permitted to be late
We ate dinner at six each day
Eat every bite on our plate.
About the menu we had no say.
We had baking soda submarines
Popular Mechanics magazines
And that was technology back then.
Decoder rings and roller skate keys
Shooting marbles on our knees
And playing crooks and G-men.
Those days we had three channels
On all black and white televisions.
Just the same thirteen inch boxes;
Nothing like 3D or Panavision.
Loved Uncle Miltie and Lucille Ball
And considered Korla Pandit a waste,
But we must be forgiven because
Back then, no one had much taste.
We could spell Kula, Fran and Ollie,
Said words like “gosh”, and “by golly”
And were anxious to see flying cars.
Many movies were in Technicolor
But you always had to take your brother
And he didn’t recognize the stars.
After school we played sandlot ball
Saturday were TV cartoon shows;
Dancing trees with belly buttons
And a local clown with a red nose.
We joined Cubs and Boy Scouts
Had lemonade stands by the street,
Matchbooks in bicycle stokes
And used bottle cap taps for our feet.
It seemed like days were longer then
And summer was slow to come again.
Those were the days when we had fun.
We built our forts and hooked up swings
Kids did all crazy kinds of things
Before these modern times had begun.
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 7:55 PM UTC
A three foot stick to smash up the brick
A Ten pound weight to seal their fate
Fault hearts are just but nails on my plate
"Call me 'sledgehammer'.......you will see my strength"
Swing fast unto forth,
Filter liquids that linger in quarts.......
Did that repetitive swing bust your torque?
Tell me not it was him,
Whom I believed to be was my only friend!
Sledgehammer was it not?
Sledgehammer whom hit the right spot?
Did he come to destroy sandlot?
Please oh lord please tell me not......
For I know naught
But god oh please tell me sledgehammer did not!
He whom hurt you with implicit demand for strength
Steal your mighty molded ranks
You gave him power and sealed your fates
Call him Sledgehammer
"I'm here to forever hammer your fates!"
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 10:41 PM UTC
Listening to Jimmy Buffet
while relaxing on the roof,
she says “I swear I could jump right off it,
because I believe that I am bulletproof.”
This prompts a needed conversation
about theoreticals and physics,
based on her lack of self preservation
soon it will be her grave I visit.
You turn pebbles into rocks
and you make roads into sidewalks,
while both are wrong I could take them on
but you are like the chains to my locks.
I was stumbling through the darkened hall
leaning up for support against the the wall,
And found myself in a dusty bathroom stall,
advertising numbers of some bird I heard I should call.
Give a penny for your thoughts,
I’m saving up for nothing good.
I beg “give it to me straight, doc”
as any good doctor should.
You turn pebbles into rocks
and you make roads into sidewalks,
and in my mind, how easily I find
a thick outline that’s drawn in chalk.
What a bone I’ve got to pick
too bad it’s chipped and it’s been ground.
I hope this situation doesn’t stick;
but it’s past it’s welcome stuck around.
And I’m greeted like an answering machine,
except no has any answers left for me.
It’s all just driven me right up the walls,
I keep saying “you’re killin’ me, smalls.”
Feb 5, 2025
Feb 5, 2025 at 9:34 PM UTC
In summer in the country
the married buzzards wheel and flow
on languid wings,
surveilling every inch of the earth below
for unwary prey.
The sun tracks dawn to night
over heat scorched land,
ripening the grains and drying the hay,
whilst in dense city living,
the park tree-leaves rustle
in summer symphony and
sandlot infants scream and play,
their mothers watching every move,
no suntime siesta now and here.
And in dense packed city blocks
mi casa es non su casa,
open windows leak sound,
and the smell of someone’s mother’s cooking
is treif at another table.
In grander houses the front lawns
now water-lack died-back brown,
evidence of greener days gone past,
wait for the fall's forgiving.
And yet and still
in the mellow evenings
neighbors talk to neighbors
friendly asides,
jokes,
politesses,
the leavenings
that let us live together
till the cool comes
and the windows and the doors shut.
We too hibernate till spring.
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 7:26 AM UTC
Running the fine hairs against my palms,
The cold wooden, slick wooden, handle,
Wondering which tree was this tool born from,
Vast colors on every single pallet,
A simple two syllable word,
Could not desribe their rich beauty,
My shaken hand guiding,
The straight and steady paint brush,
Lines lines lines lines,
Dark and light and dark and light,
A swirl of emotions on a piece of paper,
Heart racing,
Mind wandering,
Wanderlust,
Or just lost,
Not enough color,
Not enough shapes,
Swirls and spirals,
Like spirits in the sky,
Aluminous beauty,
Sprites dancing under mother Luna,
A shabby shacked city,
Full of sleeping children,
Or maybe star crossed lovers,
Maybe the kids from sandlot,
Cause they never really grew up,
Maybe heaven or hell,
But it's beautiful,
And I made it,
I drownd the paint brush,
Into the blackish blueish pool of water,
Swirling,
My finger tips dip into the paint,
Cold and calming,
Like a ghost of a friend,
I use to know,
Smearing the masterpiece into exiestence.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 12:45 AM UTC
Die
Because the world
Why?
Because the world can't allow it
Now
I see color
In the darkest
And I know life and love
I see generations
Heard stories
Felt death
Live
And words
Live
And life
Live
And money
Live
And all conniving interest yell
Live
And fight
Tomorrow
In some forsaken sandlot
In some unforgiving parking lot
In some hell
I'll find heaven
In death
Live
Because tomorrow's brighter sun
Found a cloud
And only one way.around
Live
Nov 3, 2016
Nov 3, 2016 at 11:54 PM UTC