Here's another poem that turned up while I've been going through files. This one I've edited from the version I first wrote 25 years ago.
Away Game
the Lisbon of Henry the Navigator
cobblestones, tiles with the colors of isolation,
baleful pigs on a truck
romantic Lisbon on the Atlantic
where endeth land and where beginneth …
but
no one to talk to
blisters (why these shoes?)
alone, travel’s effort not adventure
hotel TV: smarmy British game show
Bogart flick with Portuguese subtitles
& suddenly baseball
heaves into sight
so unexpected it takes a beat
to recognize Pirates & Mets
I hold my breath
top of the first. ecstasy:
two hours
to lay around Lisbon far off
Zane Smith sets the Mets down on 3 pitches
wait! I get it:
three shown pitches
the inning has more
(of course).
top of the second:
fly out, ground out, fly out, Mets gone.
the same each inning:
TV shows only the pitch that “matters”
game cut adrift
more foreign than the black widows of Portugal
outside dark men
hurry home to garlic soup
how to dream of a New World
of baseball and brigands and staying away
a pitch or 2 from Frank Viola
& that’s the third
the game skips isolate to the ninth in 20 minutes
the Pirates have six hits but I’m granted
only the outs. the moment of the out.
where’s the baserunning, spitting, conference on the mound?
who’s catching this near-baseball but a blue American?
I grab the next flight out of Lisbon
even in November the baseball’s better at home
I could never be an exile
being bored only works at the ballpark
the slow sailing patches
the circumnavigations
as essential as the finds
what is baseball
but the time it takes
to drag & slide through a game
as much live your life in two hours
of highlights. the likeness
to a human world back home
11/90–3/16
Away Game
the Lisbon of Henry the Navigator
cobblestones, tiles with the colors of isolation,
baleful pigs on a truck
romantic Lisbon on the Atlantic
where endeth land and where beginneth …
but
no one to talk to
blisters (why these shoes?)
alone, travel’s effort not adventure
hotel TV: smarmy British game show
Bogart flick with Portuguese subtitles
& suddenly baseball
heaves into sight
so unexpected it takes a beat
to recognize Pirates & Mets
I hold my breath
top of the first. ecstasy:
two hours
to lay around Lisbon far off
Zane Smith sets the Mets down on 3 pitches
wait! I get it:
three shown pitches
the inning has more
(of course).
top of the second:
fly out, ground out, fly out, Mets gone.
the same each inning:
TV shows only the pitch that “matters”
game cut adrift
more foreign than the black widows of Portugal
outside dark men
hurry home to garlic soup
how to dream of a New World
of baseball and brigands and staying away
a pitch or 2 from Frank Viola
& that’s the third
the game skips isolate to the ninth in 20 minutes
the Pirates have six hits but I’m granted
only the outs. the moment of the out.
where’s the baserunning, spitting, conference on the mound?
who’s catching this near-baseball but a blue American?
I grab the next flight out of Lisbon
even in November the baseball’s better at home
I could never be an exile
being bored only works at the ballpark
the slow sailing patches
the circumnavigations
as essential as the finds
what is baseball
but the time it takes
to drag & slide through a game
as much live your life in two hours
of highlights. the likeness
to a human world back home
11/90–3/16