Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Knee-Deep In June
Tell you what I like the best --
'Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, -- some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!
Orchard's where I'd ruther be --
Needn't fence it in fer me! --
Jes' the whole sky overhead,
After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run - as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
Baseball Canto
Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn,
reading Ezra Pound,
and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through the
Anglo-Saxon tradition in the first Canto
and demolish the barbarian invaders.
When the San Francisco Giants take the field
and everybody stands up for the National Anthem,
with some Irish tenor's voice piped over the loudspeakers,
with all the players struck dead in their places
and the white umpires like Irish cops in their black suits and little
True Story
they found him walking along the freeway
all red in
front
he had taken a rusty tin can
and cut off his sexual
machinery
as if to say --
see what you've done to
me? you might as well have the
rest.
Baseball And Writing
Fanaticism?No.Writing is exciting
and baseball is like writing.
You can never tell with either
how it will go
or what you will do;
generating excitement--
a fever in the victim--
pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter.
Victim in what category?
Owlman watching from the press box?
A Best Friend
A BEST FRIEND-Makes a lunch trade with you even if he doesn't love peanut butter and jelly.
A BEST FRIEND-Notices you standing alone by the fence and invites you to play hockey with the rest of the class.
A BEST FRIEND-Chooses you to go camping with him each summer.
A BEST FRIEND-Puts chalk in the teacher's eraser so you're not the only
one who has to stay after school.
A BEST FRIEND-Smiles and offers a firm handshake when you make the
high school baseball team and he doesn't.
A BEST FRIEND-Makes you feel just a little bit better every time you talk to him.
The Dog Named Lady
Lady, the dog that looks like a rat
Chases a beautiful Persian cat
She puts in high gear
Running like a deer
Then trips over a huge baseball bat.
Copyright 2018, Rose Marie Juan-Austin, All Rights Reserved
Baseball
The game was tied in the bottom of nine
A runner on third and two out
In the dead still air a mosquito's whine
Was all you could hear, then a shout
"Do something Ben, murder the ball,
For crying out loud get a hit."
Ben strode to the plate to answer the call
The now restless fans knew this was it
Enthusiasm
"Don't overdo it," Dad yelled, watching me
Play shortstop, collect stamps and shells,
Roll on the grass laughing until I peed my pants.
"Screw him," I said, and grabbed every cowry
I could find, hogged all the books I could
From Heights Library, wore out the baseball
Diamond dawn to dusk, and—parents in Duluth—
Gorged on bountiful Candy dusk to dawn.
A Ballad Of Baseball Burdens
The burden of hard hitting. Slug away
Like Honus Wagner or like Tyrus Cobb.
Else fandom shouteth: "Who said you could play?
Back to the jasper league, you minor slob!"
Swat, hit, connect, line out, goet on the job.
Else you shall feel the brunt of fandom's ire
Biff, bang it, clout it, hit it on the knob -
This is the end of every fan's desire.
The burden of good pitching. Curved or straight.
The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball
each day mowed
and mowed his lawn, his dry quarter acre,
the machine slicing a wisp
from each blade's tip. Dust storms rose
around the roar: 6:00 P.M., every day,
spring, summer, fall. If he could mow
the snow he would.
On one side, his neighbors the cows
turned their backs to him
and did what they do to the grass.
Baseball's Sad Lexicon
These are the saddest of possible words:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Trio of Bear-cubs, fleeter than birds,
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double --
Words that are weighty with nothing but trouble:
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Autobiography
I am leading a quiet life
in Mike’s Place every day
watching the champs
of the Dante Billiard Parlor
and the French pinball addicts.
I am leading a quiet life
on lower East Broadway.
I am an American.
I was an American boy.
I read the American Boy Magazine
Half Naked Without A Hat
One hot summer day
At the carnival
I saw the teenage boy
Who had a big crush
On my beautiful sister.
He stole a kiss from her
But he got no luck
Before he could land his lips on hers
Her eyes were poked
Analysis Of Baseball
It’s about
the ball,
the bat,
and the mitt.
Ball hits
bat, or it
hits mitt.
Bat doesn’t
hit ball, bat
meets it.
Thank You, Mom
Thank You Mom-for holding me in your loving arms every time I cried.
Thank You Mom-for changing my diaper and singing me to sleep.
Thank You Mom-for holding my hand as you walked me onto the bus my first day of school.
Thank You Mom-for trudging through the snow each winter to watch me perform in the school play.
Thank You Mom-for cooking my favorite dinner the night I struck out to end the game.
Thank You Mom-for calling to say "I love you" the night I slept over Aunt Stephanie's house.
The Hangman At Home
What does a hangman think about
When he goes home at night from work?
When he sits down with his wife and
Children for a cup of coffee and a
Plate of ham and eggs, do they ask
Him if it was a good day's work
And everything went well or do they
Stay off some topics and kill about
The weather, baseball, politics
And the comic strips in the papers
A Message To America
You have the grit and the guts, I know;
You are ready to answer blow for blow
You are virile, combative, stubborn, hard,
But your honor ends with your own back-yard;
Each man intent on his private goal,
You have no feeling for the whole;
What singly none would tolerate
You let unpunished hit the state,
Unmindful that each man must share
The stain he lets his country wear,
Fare Thee Well: To My Grandfather Milton B. Young
...
my memory's screen door opens to the stars;
there's my Grandfather in the yard
gazing up at the constellations
'That's Telstar, going over us still, '
he whispers softly
his face in the moonlight lined;
no Hamlet's ghost is he
though he whistled when he was worried.
He's not worried now