Showing posts with label Baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baseball. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Crackerjacks

 

At the mutant hospital

we grilled burgers and dogs

and listened to baseball on the radio.

 

What else could ease our rehabbing hearts?

 

Jimmy insisted on using bamboo chopsticks—

don’t ask me how he does it, but he does.

I nodded, but ate mine from the pocket of my glove.

 

Both of us sighed

knowing the Babe would be proud—

a hot dog between each finger

and a cigar after, or during,

as our preference allowed.

 

The nurse came to tell us to,

“put those OUT!”

 

But “OUT” means something different

when you’re on defense,

so, we just grinned victoriously

at her ever-increasing scowls.

 

From there in the yard,

we dreamed of donning our disguises

and escaping to our own field of dreams.

 

Me, in my beret,

trying to avoid people’s eyes

spinning like pinwheels

and glazing over

when I tell them I write poetry

(don’t look at me like that,

people have been writing it

since the dawn of time).

 

And Jimmy, dressed up

like a Spanish conquistador,

or a brightly colored piƱata,

to avoid the inevitable comment

that he’s “too smart for his own good,”

which means he’s too smart for theirs.

 

But that’s why we’ve teamed up—

our gifts being misunderstood.

We know “mutant”

is another name for a special kind of

talent, a genius, a crackerjack.

 

And if you get it,

buy me some—

I don’t care if I never get back.

  


© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

  


For Shay’s Word Garden Word List—Shakespeare Bats Cleanup

I used 11 of the given words.

 

Monday, April 4, 2016

Calling the Game


Like Pudge.
Like Bench.

Like Yogi.

Opening Day
on the glistening green

shimmering
diamond,

with dirt under his nails

he scoops
the ball
from his mitt,

tosses back to the ace,

crouches,
gives signal,
waits

for the curve

of his smile,
and spits

o - u - t.


© 2016 Jennifer Wagner



Opening Day 2016. Go M's!
photo © 2016 Jennifer Wagner


A Quadrille poem for dVerse. Exactly 44 words (title excluded), including the word “shimmer” (or variant as I've used here).


Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Dear April



image © 2015 Jennifer Wagner,
photo of my home calendar

You don't fool me. Though
you start off that way.

Yes, you slosh rain
from infinity buckets,
but you smile
just the same
from the ground up--
jelly bean tulips and buttery daffodils
springing round
like long-lost jewels.

And even though it's time
for the bogey-tax-man,
you balance him
with a month of poetry
and the crack
of a bat and Big League Chew
(Original, Grape, Sour Apple, and Watermelon!).

So, you're not really fooling me, April,
as much as you think you are.

T.S. Eliot said you are
the cruelest month,” but
at least more often than in March,
there is guaranteed
one Good Friday
and a Resurrection reminder
(coming back from the dead
really can't be beat).

Plus, your flower is the daisy (my favorite)
or the sweet pea,
which always reminds me
of the song my dad would sing,
Oh, Sweet Pea, come on and dance with me . . .”
riding along with him in his truck--

after which he'd switch it off
to bellow into the CB,
breaker 1-9, this is Gladiator.”
No one's dad is as
cool and tough as a Gladiator, right?

So,
you don't fool me, April.
I think you kind of like me.


P.S. I kind of like you, too.


© 2015 Jennifer Wagner



And, Happy National Poetry month!

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Honus


T206 Honus Wagner Baseball Card
Image in the Public Domain


When you’re rare
you’re worth a lot.

Even if you’re just
the kid brother afterthought
working in a coal mine
at 12 years old—

you can

dream,
believe,
become.

Like becoming
one of the
first 5 players elected
to the National Baseball Hall of Fame,

or becoming
the first
to get your signature on
the Louisville Slugger,

or have yours
be the most valuable
baseball card in history.

Like Honus,
there’s only one you,

and it might be schmaltzy
to say, but—
that’s pretty rare.



© 2014 Jennifer Wagner




Monday, January 27, 2014

Fourteen



Like a classic car,
or old school stuff
that never goes out of style,

like when people say, in admiration,
“they just don’t make ‘em like that anymore”

you

make me grin
and say to myself,

yes, they do.


© 2014 Jennifer Wagner




An instant classic.   
I know, I know, spoken like a Mom.  But what can I say?  I adore the kid.  He celebrated his 14th birthday this weekend.  
Photo © 2014 Jennifer Wagner










Friday, November 8, 2013

it's about more than winning


photo © 2013 Jennifer Wagner






baseball is about more than just the money

baseball is
a metaphor for life
           
baseball is
to return home
good for what ails us
romantic
an art
           
baseball is
poetry




© 2013 Jennifer Wagner



For Form for All:  List Poems and the Poetic Heart of Google.  Sam Peralta has us using Googlism to create poetry.  Our instructions were to visit the Googlism site and type in a word of our choosing and craft a list poem from the results.  Fun! 

And for Clint, my 13 year old crazy-for-baseball, grand-slam-hitting kid.  You amaze me and make me so proud!  (Photo:  Desert Fall Classic Tournament 2013— opposing teams taking a knee together).