Whether you dislike poetry or dislike baseball I am betting you will like both with the visual, oral, and textual delivery of this sensational game in three strikes. The video presents Strike Two which sits, all nine innings, in the middle of the three strike narrative as seen in the text below the video. Enjoy!
Strike ONE
The last time I was in Memphis
was poetic
I had not been home
so I had not been to Three Lil Pigs
I was having a BBQ dog that
was Memphis’s main
reason for existence
The second reason was baseball
Specifically, The Memphis Chickasaws
The third reason for Memphis
was my friend, Dog, who was stuffing
his face at Three Lil Pigs.
Dog was the only one I could find.
Grover Tidwell was dead
George “Chutzpa” Hudson was dead
Clyde Coverboy Thompson dead.
Me, dead drunk
Dog, alive enough for all of us
even with his trademark
off somewhere far away
look still in his eye after
all these years
Later, the almost empty jug
of shine stuck in the mud
on the bank of the
Wolf River as were we
oblivious to the
cotton mouth moccasins
and sixty pound catfish that
could be nibbling on our
feet under the surface
of the Wolf which as children
was both our friend and terrorist
Its moccasins had eaten Toby Hodges
when we were ten and skinny dipping
after a fallow field baseball game
“Dog, you written anything lately?”
Dog, straight backed and
wonder eyed said
Strike TWO
“Before I die
I want to write poetry
you can taste
like a
baseball game hotdog
relishing the
crunchy of the onion
counterpointing the
munchy of the meat
like the first hotdog hogged
at that first baseball game
that first
concert of sensations
rhapsody on rhapsody
hedonist heaven
exquisite redolence of
baseball leather
meeting
gustatory abandon
Memphis Chickasaws
My Memphis Idol
hits a line drive
It misses my first
grandstand
fielder’s glove and
splatters
sausage
mustard
onion
relish
chili peppers
ball and all
explodes
in my face
introduces
the
recklessness
of reality
to expanding experience
I caught that line drive
our own home team homer
simultaneously
taking the edge off joy
the corners off courage
bevelling bravado
the quarter note
rest silence of the curve ball
meeting the sixteenth note
echo of the smack of bat
clobbered me with the
astronomical
immensity
of living
leading me to
lunge always
after
excellence in ethos
parabola in pathos
bipolar in bathos
continuity in chaos
arhythmic syncopation in eros
living life
until its gradient
graduates
dulling crepuscularly
toward doldrum
accented occasionally
by
memory’s sensational
recapture
in the super nova
splendor
of
second childhood
the craving for
diamond stadium hotdog
let’s face it
with or without a
home run in it
never once losing
the thrill of
playful participation
in the winning
of the game
Strike Three
Dog sat suddenly
even more erect
feet dangling in the Wolf
PLAY BALL”
shouted
Umpire Dog
and slid
ceremoniously
and straight
as a board
into the depths of the Wolf
wonder in his eye
baseball on his brain
the lingering medley of
hotdog and tasteful poetry
in his mouth
I never saw Dog or Memphis again
