Saturday, April 7, 2018

PAD Day 7: A Bonus Poem for Baseball Season

So here's the other poem I decided to write, which more directly addresses the Poetic Asides "senses" prompt. It also ties into the NaPoWriMo prompt (see prior entry) because I put "Phillies fan" on both the "powerful" and "vulnerable" lists of my identities. So here you go:



Phillies Fan

It's a blessing and a curse
to root for a team that has lost
more than 10,000 games
in their century-plus existence,
but I have been lucky enough in my life
to witness two World Series titles.
(I can hear you Yankees fans snicker.)

Every year spring brings mixed emotions
of optimism and doubt. This year
there's a new manager, and some
bright new talent: Hoskins, Crawford,
Kingery and Nick Williams,
and some new veterans too,
like Arrieta and Carlos Santana.

But it also brings all the joys
of the ballpark, after a winter
of hibernation: our guys in red and white
trotting onto the field; the Phanatic,
pot-bellied, long-snouted, very green,
performing his usual antics;
the bat cracks, the cheers and boos
(Phillies fans don't hide their emotions);
the fly ball lofting into center field
that you pray will clear the fence;
the smell of popcorn and spilled beer;
the taste of a good beef hot dog;
squirming in a hard plastic chair
when things don't go so well,
and jumping out of it when they do.


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