Baseball Poetry

Dedicated to the writing of those invited to participate in a baseball poetry project. Those invited were asked to 1) go to a baseball game, any game and 2) create a poem, in any shape or form about that particular game or some memory of baseball, for the purpose of developing a collection. Most baseball poetry collections are ones culled from the works of famous poets; this one is designed to be more democratic, inviting some established poets and others moved to write baseball poems.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Diatribe

Dan DeVries

For Chris, in real life
Frank, in imagination, and
Ted, in memory

I.

Something I always feel
at a baseball game.
How much I love the scene
& how little I love “America.”

If only they played ball
in England
where they play cricket.
In its own way

nearly as good. And Canada
where they play ball.
Jackie Robinson auditioned
in Montreal, where they

don’t anymore, at least not
in that silly indoor place
by the great botanic garden
. . .

Think about it. Art Turf
across the busy street
from nature’s own art
where it gets a little help

from hardworking locals
(docents & presumably legal
gardeners) a great place
honestly & the best

North American beer grows
there too.
Check it out at www.unibroue.com
strong lager, Raftman,

With a coral sheen that is slightly robust
and combines the character of whisky malt.
Brewed to commemorate the legendary courage
of the forest workers and share their

Joie de vivre with a beer and a whisky.
Very cool, although it doesn’t have to be
served that way. Big tough redhead
French Canadian logroller piking river-borne timber

on the label. You want
myth and legend, well, I tried
to write a poem about Tiger Stadium.
Got two four line stanzas

into the thing & it turned into
a diatribe about Nixon.
The professor hated it
even though I meant

every word, and turned out to be
right. Maybe that’s why
when I think about writing about
baseball, now,

I think of George W. Bush.
The best thing I saw
in Montreal’s botanic garden was
the First Nation recreation

of what that place
may have been, then,
In those days . . .


II.

I played sick the day
JFK threw out the first pitch
in the stadium now named
after his brother where

the Nats play, for now,
so I could watch my beloved
Tigers on opening day in 1962.
In the same new house later

That year I was baking
for the first time . . .
Angelfood cake . . . Angel
Bo Belinsky

Threw his 1st start no-
hitter. That same year
I heard the news that
Marilyn Monroe died.

(“I am truly horribly upset because Marilyn
Monroe died”) while I baked that cake
Angel Angel Angel & it wasn’t that long
afterward that JFK was dead too.

Dog fuck America
land that I loathe.
Irving Berlin wrote
something like that

Moloch Moloch Moloch
Alan Ginsberg wrote
exactly that. Those aren’t the teachings
of a man of god, Eliza G. sang that

in Golden Gate Park, & elsewhere.
I sit here in North America, a place
I love for 3 reasons.
1. Itself, the look of the place;

2. Baseball, for all the obvious reasons;
& there is a third, but
I forget it now, I suppose it
must have been

The promise of the place
furiously betrayed by lies.
So I don’t stand for the blood-spattered banner,
wish to sing O Canada

With pure patriot love
in all my heart commanded.
Fuck Jesus! said Ted (albeit in jest)
but Ted is dead (July 4, 1983).

True patriot he, true
son of Whitman
that “incredible queer”
(per Ted).

Almost wish there were
a GOD who
would dispense richly
deserved damnation

As though that weren’t
aught but a richly
merited fantasy . . .
America . . .

When will you cease
your never-ending
war with the flesh
& my soul?

& when will you finally,
as the good Doc.
Williams said, realize there are
no ideas but in things?

III.

The trip begins
with a Beefeater
at Jack’s Bistro.
The security level

is Marsec 1
(whatever that means).
The Peralta approacheth
the dock. The cormorant

on the buoy by the Potomoac
fleeth not. Departing
passengers look
anything but terrified.

Boy Scouts go by.
Language is spoken.
There is the possibility
of rough water says the Speaker.

Particularly for the Giants
who have lost 7 in a row.
Pelicans to Starboard
entering the Bay.

Big old ugly barge
straight ahead
although not THAT straight ahead
& then THE Bay Bridge

easily got under & then the Capital
of Ecotopia & the ballpark (on its third phone company name
nameless here, for obvious reasons
of good taste) at Port.

The ferry approacheth its
target wharf, framed
by one tower named
either after a carpet company

or 19th Century criminal &
the other named after
a TRUE corporate criminal
(i.e. COIT & Transamerica).

No City
without its verily awful bloodlines,
as Dr. Thompson might insinuate.
Hit the dock, walk between

two great pop artifacts
Oldenberg’s bow & arrow
(I left my heart, get it?) & the
Hills Bros Arab & on to the Embarcadero.

Commencing a stately stroll, even
for one spiritually stateless
except perhaps in state of mind.
O Canada, O Canada

Which won’t get sung tonite.
Past godawful statuary
“Passage” courtesy of
Black Rock Art Foundation.

Talk about black art!
Well, after all, it is
Organ Donor Night at the “old” ballpark
& one is stupidly tempted

To make wishlists:
For Bush a healthy mind.
For Cheney a soul.
For Leezy a conscience, but

fantasy is fruitless.
They ain’t got ‘em
& they ain’t going to.
Bill Clinton an organ

to go with his sax? Aw c’mon
Cheap Cheap Cheap
Cheep Cheep Cheep, and the anthem
is actually beautifully

sung, but who
can stand for it
or the republic
for which it pretends to stand?

(O Canada. O Canada.)
Followed by recorded Bowie
doing Young Americans.
As Carl once said

I can’t believe I live
on this planet!
but according to various solipsists I
sort of have to accept that I do.

I do. I do. Three pressing
questions at 7:25 PM.
Can the Cubs hold a 9-3 lead
in the 9th at Wrigley.

Can the Tigers hold a 10-4 lead
in the 9th at St. Pete?
Can the Giants ever win again.
Probably yes, to all 3

Not that any of it will do any
good for the planet’s sufferers
aside from Cub, Tiger, & Giant fans
who can’t be suffering all

that much because they still
have time for baseball
and don’t even have to dodge bombs
between innings. Tiger fans

being the least easily pardoned because
if they don’t enjoy
this season their suffering
be self-inflicted.

At the phone park, bluebirds sweep
the view deck. Sadly,
they are not bluebirds
of happiness.

IV.

(Interesting, but unpoetic sidebar:
On the day Fidel’s provisional
stepaside becomes public in the USA
Washington pitcher is

Cuban fink and ex-Giant
Livian Hernandez & the most-hated
Person in the USA -- besides Fidel – also nameless here,
is NOT in the lineup.)

Through 3 & ½ innings none of this has helped the Giants
much. They play old, old, old
old as Fidel, who should have died
hereafter, but hasn’t, weird JFK-

linked schemes notwithstanding.
Foul balls still go foul.
Bad baserunning turns into outs, &
“our” lads do plenty of it.

Baseball being as merciless as
the American Way
which must be why it remains
the National Game.

So here I am, watching
the Washington Nationals, no relation
to Senators of either stripe, & managed
by Frank Robinson, the best player I ever saw.

I couldn’t say enough good things
about him, wearing my ImpeachBush.org baseball cap,
except this, to quote Ted one last time.
“He will always be perfectly Frank.”

Leave game at 9:25
presence as
insignificant as it is
in the real world &

Besides, taping it at home
where warm bed &
bedfellow & whisky whisky
my old friend

await. Good night Mrs. De Vries
all of you (save one who knows who she is
& that isn’t her name anyway)
wherever you are, I just want

to make it clear I’m not
one of yours
whatever they or you say
& have not been
for a long time.

Line Score R H E Pitchers HR
WA 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 4 6 0 L Hernandez 7 (W 9-8), Bowie .2, Rauch .1, Cordero 1 (S 19) none

SF 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 6 0 Cain 7 (L 7-8), Chulk .2, Stanton .1, Benitez 1 none



San Francisco, Cobmoosa Shores, MI, 5/18 – 8/9, 2006




1 Comments:

  • At 9:44 AM, Blogger David Schaafsma said…

    I just sent Dan detailed comments via email, but can post them here if you are interested. But in general, I like this poem very very much as one instance of what the best of poems can be: meditations on life, art, politics, the self, in the best traditions of whitman, ginsberg, bukowski, hunter thompson, thomas pynchon. . . gonzo poetry, indeed. I laughed, I was moved, nodded knowingly in many places.

     

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