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.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Requiem for a Pitcher

Dan DeVries


--He wasn’t scared of nothin’, Boys
He was pretty sure he could fly

--Guy and Susanna Clark, lines from “The Cape”

And it is a leap of faith
to pitch for George Shipbuilder.

Sz George to St. Joseph –

“I expect a great deal from you . . .
Yes I am deeply disappointed . . .
We have to do better . . .
I deeply want a championship . . .

I have high expectations . . .
I want to see enthusiasm . . .
Responsibility is yours, Joe . . .”

Instruction like that from the top
doesn’t necessarily cause
airplanes to fly into buildings
in the borough of Manhattan

but doesn’t there seem to be a
certain structural similarity to
all suicide missions?

RIP Cory. And your flight instuctor.
And the horse he rode in on.
Jealousy and stupidity
Don't equal harmony

as John Prine once said.
In the next world you are
on your own, although there will
probably be shipbuilders there, too.

posted by Frans Vander Grove @ 9:42 PM  

1 Comments:

  • At 2:00 PM, Blogger David Schaafsma said…

    It is indeed a bizarre world. And the woman whose apt gets torched from the crash is the same woman who was injured in a Macy's parade in windy conditions. Might be a poem in there, too! As far as this one goes, I love it. The Guy Clark quote is perfect. The Steinbrenner pontification to Torre is funny and part of the talk about what might have been going on. . . Ilove the Prine quote, LOL, but the effect of the whole ending is surprisingly tender, finally becoming the serious requiem the title said it was gonna be. Kudos.

     

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