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Maybe I Am The Phantom of Baseball

The Found Poetry in the Tweets of Jose Canseco

by Patrick Dubuque

Maybe I am the phantom of baseball

I will do anything for one more at bat
I know I can still hit MLB pitching
I can still hit a golf ball 380 yards
I have the hips of a 20 year old
I can
I have

I have a medical condition:
I love the game so much
Even in exhibition

Invite me for an old timers game
I will play

Anything for a look

Still dreaming of that one last
Trip of imagination
Back to the big leagues

I miss everything where did it go

Patrick Dubuque blogs regularly for Pitchers & Poets, where this first appeared.

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The Roger Clemens Trial, So Far

by Stephen Jones

5 weeks & 3 dismissed jurors later

(jurors having fallen asleep
during counsel’s endless
seemingly pointless examination
& then by law let go)

this trial has exceeded boredom
is now treading in dysfunctional limbo
& has left a bitter taste:

day-by-day less truth is being
observed/served & one could wish
somebody would call off the whole
thing on account “of legal rain”

 

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Roger Clemens

by Stephen Jones

Permissible or not
There seems to be a drought
Of honesty afoot

Pitching maybe-perjury
Clemens seems for once
To be outta his league

His domineering stance
On the mound not found
Now drugs/performance

An arguance
More finger pointing it seems
As ugly truths are exhumed

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End of Mariano: The Poem

by Hart Seely

Whiffed Piazza, Harold Baines,
Eric Davis, Hardrock Raines.
Batters swung and bade goodbye,
Carlos Beltran, Russell Dye.
BJ Surhoff, Albert Belle,
Junior Griffey, Pat Burrell.
None of them could solve his tricks.
Then the gods sent Jayson Nix.

Struck out Nomar, Randy Wynn,
Tori Hunter, Tony Gwynn.
Mighty bats would disappear,
Juan Gonzalez, Rusty Greer,
Jeffrey Hammond, Jim Thome,
Julio Franco, Jason Bay.
Silent went their famous sticks.
Then the gods sent Jayson Nix.

At 41, not nearly through,
ERA still under two.
Twelve times in the All-Star game,
Sure bet for the Hall of Fame.
Greatest pitcher still alive,
Could have gone ’till 45.
Who among us saw the fix
When the gods sent Jayson Nix?

Hart Seely’s dangerous book, The Juju Rules, is available now in bookstores and at Amazon.

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Joba: The Poem

by Hart Seely

President Lincoln, skip that show!
Amelia Earhart, please don’t go!
Dillinger, don’t trust that vamp!
Joba, please . . . avoid that tramp.

JFK, don’t take that ride!
Dr. King, sir, stay inside!
Julius Caesar, ditch that crown!
Joba, jump . . . just don’t come down.

Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
America, free beer for all!
Mariano, please don’t go!
Joba . . . say it isn’t so.

Hart Seely’s new book, The Juju Rules: Or How to Win Ballgames from Your Couch, is now in bookstores.  He also runs the essential Yankee blog, It Is High, It Is Far, It Is . . . caught.