A Poem about Baseballs
for years the scenes bustledthrough him as he dreamed he wasalive. then he felt real, and slammedawake in the wet sheets screamingtoo fast, everything movestoo fast, and the edges of thingsare gone. four blocks awaya baseball was a dot againstthe sky, and he thought, myglove is too big, i willdrop the ball and it will bea home run. the snow fallstoo fast from the clouds,and night is dropped andsnatched back like a hugejoke. is that the ball, or isit just a bird, and the ball issomewhere else, and i willmiss it? and the edges are gone, myhands melt into the walls, myhands do not end where the wallbegins. should i moveforward, or back, or will the ballcome right to me? i know i willmiss, because i always miss when ittakes so long. the wall has nosurface, no edge, the wallfades into the air and the air ismy hand, and i am the wall. myarm is the syringe and thus ibecome the nurse, i am you,nurse. if he getsaround the bases before theball comes down, is it a homerun, even if i catch it? if we couldslow down, and stop, wewould be one fused mass careeningat too great a speed throughthe emptiness. if i catchthe ball, our side willbe up, and i will have to bat,and i might strike out.
My first rejection came from Highlights when I was in the second grade. I had written what I thought to be quite a break-through poem about a monster who was afraid of himself when he looked in the mirror and submitted it to the magazine.
Every month, I’d flip past Goofus & Gallant, skip over the hidden pictures, and go right to “Your Own Pages” to see if my poem had been published. No such luck. Month after month I had to suffer through yet another shoddy drawing of a giraffe by a five-year-old instead of my epic poem. Maybe it was too long? Maybe it was just not the right audience.
The editor(or an intern) did send me back a small yellow sheet of paper thanking me for my submission. My mother said she we should keep if for when I do get published someday.
Poems Before Books
In the winter of 2009, I lived in cold and snowy Chicago. Far away from home, I wrote poems about my muse Helen. This was long before I decided to write a novel about her.
Here’s one I thought about as I wrote today:
Merry Christmas
I haven’t thought of you in some time. I want to say that. And I will to myself. These walls are dull again. I stripped off the yellow glass with my knuckles because my fingers were too tired to do so.
Yesterday, I sat at the kitchen table and drew out our daily plans.
Today we will repair the fence and work on the woman with the broken back- she needs to be on her knees like I thought. I need you to go to the store today. Milk, eggs, bottles, and return and retrieve library books.
The fields are dusty again and the neighbors suspicious. It is better that you stay away.
I striped the yellow glass off with my elbows and my knees. My fingers were too tired. Last week I took my noon tea and spoke to you.
We will want to make the fence higher and more inviting. Let’s invite the neighbors and prove less suspicious.
I woke at dawn today and thought I heard you approaching. I look down at my bloody hands and think about the night before.
Merry Christmas.
From Walt, With Love
You have not known what you are, you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk.
