Reviving the Art of Baseball Doggerel
When earthquakes terrorize Japan,
And home run sluggers head to jail,
When rioting confronts Iran,
And bankers grow too big to fail,
When Presidents must prove their birth,
From fools who claim they don’t belong,
While tides of hatred roil the Earth.
And all the world seems going wrong.
When cresting rivers flood our land,
And cemeteries fill with graves,
We’ll know it’s time to make our stand…
When Mariano blows two saves.
Finally
The season,a month old
This weekend
My first trip to the park
Forgotten for an afternoon
Natural disasters
Political platitudes
A far too long winter
I’ll take a brat and a beer
Play ball !
“the body, better than it was here in its best estate of health”
Augustine, City of God 13.20
Unlike the mound and infield now,
where grass, dirt, dew drops,
chalk receive and slow
the stitched sphere, will you watch
the cicatrice on the weedless diamond
heal itself before you, glisten
as if untouched but for
the men who cut it clean
of taller whiskery rising strands
that perfect day you found it once,
a glorious Spring day,
in the park in the middle of town?
Or rather will nature be itself
renewed? To the wind give its scars;
the body, its best estate of health
surpassed, from which not its power
but all need is taken, balanced,
sturdy on the spikes; and action:
you turn, meeting the ball with the rounded branch,
willing time true, and each his own perfection.
This is what you wanted, hope for
every time you play:
love casting its heart’s weight’s core
through time to that eternal day.
With apologies to Dr. Gene Fendt
For Ozzie Guillen:
With umps he will fight for a hitter,
or scream that a pitch was a spitter.
He’ll argue the calls,
that strikes should be balls,
but his tweets have the league all a-twitter.
Hilary Barta’s pop-cult limerick blog, Limerwrecks, is a mandatory daily requirement.
When Ozzie G. twitters a tweet,
He lands his ass in the hot seat.
With a quick 4G link,
He reveals in a wink
That his mouth can hold more than both feet.