ODE TO JALEN BRUNSON

by Kirby Olson

Before a crowd of 10,000

we watched the fifth game at Pier 17.

 

The guy next to me was from Astoria.

He told me golf was his favorite

 

sport, because he loved the lawns.

A black kid said he wanted the upstate

 

residential college experience,

and his knees hurt from bball.

 

June 13th, we spent the day

looking for Swedish candy.

 

Everyone was wearing a Knicks jersey,

even in tiny parks such as Seward.

 

That night, Brunson took out Wemby

by using his size advantage.

 

He could get a quicker start

with Hezis; he could start and stop.

 

Wemby jerked around on baby giraffe legs.

Growing frustrated, he mushed Brunson.

 

The crowd began to hate the French giant.

FU, Wemby, was heard, as the giant got the whistle again.

 

Frustration grew, and the kid next to me said that

a Spurs teen had been put in a coma at the MSG location.

 

I tried to find that on my phone, but I couldn’t.

We hated the Goliath, but remembered he was 22,

 

So we loved the mature Brunson as he wove in and out,

and stopped the questionable flopping

 

of the previous year.

This year, he drove like a barracuda,

 

his head was sheathed like a woodpecker.

He had the strength of ten gorillas.

 

He went in like a kingfisher,

but more than all that he was human.

 

He married young and loved his child.

His wife was there for him.

 

We loved that he was an American

and had seemingly no hatred for the Spurs.

 

He said in many ways he preferred Texas

because the taxes in NY were so terrible.

 

His friendship with Kat and Anunobe,

his laughter with Bridges and Hart,

 

his wearing of the helmet to avoid

eye sting from champagne;

 

We loved it all, as orange and blue prevailed!

Kirby Olson is a poet who lives in the Catskills and who occasionally visits the city. He plays adult basketball and isn't very good. His most recent book of poetry is called Night Shift at the Utopian Turtletop Factory (Half-Inch, 2026).

AN ODE TO DAVID, GOLIATH, AND THE NEW YORK KNICKS

by H.G.

Jerry Seinfeld would call me a snob.

Me, a believer that truly brilliant writing
needs a deep understanding
of the wide spectrum of human emotions.

Him, co-creator of a show
about nothing,
yet wise enough to know:
even nothing is something.

And who dare argue
with the man who saved Snapple

and thinks he’s saving Israel
while larping
as the IDF
in 2018,
mock killing Palestinians
who are killed for real
a few miles away.

All to fly 5,677 miles
home
to his NY Knicks
and his courtside tickets.

Now,
2026: Mayor Mamdani’s NYC
the Knicks first championship win
since 1973.

Jerry,
and the whole stadium,

Mayor Mamdani,
and the whole city
at watch parties

electric
street filling joy
spreading
New York
to New Jersey:
an eruption
of celebration,

as one.

The stadium,
a stone’s throw
from Palestinian Brooklyn
intertwined
with Jewish Brooklyn
and Palestinian Patterson
adjacent 
Jewish Fair Lawn

where tensions must be buried
memories are long,
trauma, genetic

and walls
                unnecessary. 

Because
everyday
a better story
can be written
by better people
than Jerry Seinfeld
and me
as on the night of June 13, 2026
when every color and creed 
of New York and New Jersey
chanted

My mayor Muslim, 
my bagel Jewish
my Christian, Dior 
Knicks took it in five, not four*

*Italicised lines based on the viral rhyme created by MD Ahnaf Hossain prior to game 4.

H.G. is an American poet based in New York. She holds an MA in history and is working on her first verse novel. Her previous poems have appeared in The Inflectionist Review, The Amphibian, The New Verse News, Blue Minaret and is forthcoming in Neon & Smoke.

FOUL TROUBLE

by Tammy Smith

Cartoon by Clay Jones

 

I know nothing about the Knicks
other than they’re from New York

and haven’t won a championship
since 1973. I know even less

about the Spurs. Game 3 at the Garden

means more traffic—

something I can’t ignore.
Maybe that’s why I’m paying
extra attention to the hype, the energy
around the rim so electrifying

I decide to watch, for the first time—
the whole game from my living room

wearing fuzzy bunny slippers 

with soft pink pajamas. 

There’s no point pretending

I understand the game

or its rules—

but I know players
who commit fouls get punished
with free throws. 

A flagrant foul sounds poetic,

as satisfying as the swish

of a slam-dunk—but the notion

of excessive contact
as a boundary violation 

makes me want to learn more

about why David Hollander thinks

basketball can save the world. The court, 

layups, turnovers, every rebound--

offense and defense, skill and hustle

underscores that legendary mantra:

you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,

which has everything and nothing

to do with deciding who gets benched,

or booing Trump.

 

Tammy Smith is a poet and licensed clinical social worker from New Jersey. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Thimble Literary Magazine, LIPS, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She received honorable mentions in the Journal of New Jersey Poets 2026 Poets Prize and the 2026 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards.