They raised the price
of dreams,
blue inked cans of del monte creamed corn
where baseball players
are reborn
in
their prime,
to play in modern day times
and not only was the
ball white
shoeless Joe Jackson
was white
his
uni was white
all the dead white players was white
takin batting practice
in white home uniforms
under white Iowa clouds.
I squirmed in my seat
hoping for a
warm thunder storm
that would rain down
cool pappa bell
and hell would drip off corn stalk blades,
pool into a homestead
gray
in
a gray away uniform,
flip down flip-up
shades,
and say -- hey now he's really playin --
got to
wear your sun glasses
so you can feel cool.
But it's only a
movie
and film school heaven is
where white doctors who played
only an inning and a half
can pray for a tinker everlastin chance to groove the 0-2
sinker.
White boys steady
leaning in
truly believin this is the best movie they've ever seen
but none of em asked Josh Gibson to slo-dance
across the color line that
fall in an Iowa ball field
broken but
unhealed.
Fathers younger than
their sons play catch
onna mismatch patch
of natural grass and James Earl Jones' broad
ass.
Hollywood's
black fat majesty
bellows... and the people will come.
and put the suicide
squeeze on my mother's mother
whose color
is the same
as a night game infield
...and
the people will come.
to see black
fathers to be
with scars on their knees
from shinbones split in half
and knocked off kneecaps
practice the tap dunks
they will pump over their daughters n sons
...and
the people will come.
How could daughters
and fathers build
wooden bleachers
just to sit and cheer male features.
If umpire Pam Postema
dies in the minor leagues
Ty Cobb'l hook slides into heaven
and she'll just call him out
and he will
get up, dust himself off, call her a...
brush it off as a tease.
Is this
heaven,
no, it's
Iowa.
Is this
heaven,
no, it's
Harlem.
Is this
heaven,
no, it's
bedrock.
Is this
heaven,
no, it's
Cabrini Green.
Do they got a
team
ain't sure
they got dreams
damn sure they ain't got a field,
or crops that yield.
Is that the sign for
'steal,'
I approach
the third base coach
and ask 'is the movies for real.'
From Poetry into the
Twenty-First Century
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