1.
Slide slide get down get underneath
that tag. Yes! The best way to be active
is to run and slide, run and slide, it takes
the kinks out of your back, you want them
back, a slider can almost rip your head off
pitches keep me honest. Pitcher and drinks
on the hill late at night after a ball game. Slide!
2.
Shortstops are ghosts in the night of the game.
Make sounds like swoosh and slip when the
bat crawls down the foul line chased
by a ball, how amusing to communicate
this way, the way in which we care for one
another with bats and balls and calls
to the ambulance when we strain our
rotator cuff. Beat your hands around my
heart, kill anything that comes near.
3.
God doesn’t follow the rules nor makes them
we all ignore the right field wall
when death is up to bat, devil’s playground
with a blowtorch and hammer touching
the sky. The birds are pigeons and we
read poetry to trumpets blowing wind
out to the sea. Poor Orpheus didn’t know
how to play baseball but he did know
how to song the rocks and leaves
with a steady diet of bluesy notes
powerful as ocean water, unrelenting laughter.
4.
Round the bases my love, round the earth
recreation in the dark city, alien world
and triumph with a pair of hot hands,
gold gloves even when the game isn’t over
remember that. Satchel Paige understood
where the ball was to (or wasn’t) to be.
Tis nobler to get called for an inside fast ball.
Tyler Farrell is a faculty member in the English department.
Farrell says about the piece: “I watch a lot of baseball and also coach baseball and play baseball so it was only natural that I would eventually write a poem about the joys of baseball and its impact on society. Go Baseball Poetry!”
In addition to his statement, he says: “Go Poetry! Go Writing! Go Learning! The world is your classroom!”
“Holiday on the Hudson”, George Luks (1912).