BALL OF MIRTH

by Dick Altman

As if the fate of nations

hung in the balance,

World Cup enters its final laps.

Though it would bring a smile,

if my hometown America

took home the gold,

I neither hold my breath

nor torture myself

over the outcome.

 

Because, in my eyes, soccer

is less about winning,

than the friendships

that encircle the ball,

whatever color of foot,

language or nationality.

 

I motorcycle—

between grad school

and college—

across Europe.

On my luggage rack,

tied in a net,

a soccer ball.

On every beach,

every campsite,

the ball serves as the key

to a kingdom of friendships.

 

The night I visit Greece’s Delphi,

mythical home of the Oracle,

I doubt even she could

have predicted what would

happen as I slept.

Someone likely too poor

to own a ball of their own

burns—likely with a cigarette—

a hole in the net

and steals the ball.

 

This—after five-thousand

kilometers starting in Amsterdam.

I could only smile.

What they really stole

was the fun—and I,

kid of twenty-two,

on a fantasy trip

most my age

could only dream about,

could afford to share

a ball that would,

in days, months,

even years to come,

produce,

in every dribble and kick,

unyielding rounds of mirth.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

LACROSSE: AN APOLOGY FOR FORGETTING

by Dick Altman

"Ball players," a hand-colored lithograph by George Catlin (1796-1872)

How Indigenous Athletes Are Reclaiming Lacrosse: The Haudenosaunee Nationals lacrosse teams have a big ambition: competing in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. —The New York Times, July 30, 2022

Thud!

 

Thud!

 

Thud!

 

The sound

of a solid rubber

lacrosse ball

slamming

into my chest

at 90 mph.

 

I’m a goalie.

By game’s end

the ball tattoos

red impact circles

all over ribs

and thighs

Everyone

a “save”.

     *

Cayuga

 

Mohawk

 

Oneida

 

Onondaga

 

Seneca

 

Tuscarora

 

Syllables poetic

of the Iroquois.

Now known as

Haudenosaunee.

Hoe-dee-no-SHOW-

nee, to my ear,

almost a poem

unto itself.

 

Haudenosaunee.

Star-strewn lacrosse

team that hopes—

and I share them—not

merely to win six years

from now Olympic gold.

 

But to trumpet

in the game’s balletic

clash and flow—

of stick on stick,

stick on flesh—

Native America’s

presence—resilient,

enduring—as I want

to imagine it

in the wider world.

                *

I write this poem for you,

you of First Nations,

to acknowledge

what a privilege

it was to dance

in your ancestors’

footsteps.

 

To play one of your

magical stringed

instruments, whose

music lets me subdue

strikes in mid-flight.

Bladed ball of poetry

that writes across

my body its wounds.

                 *

I stand fifty years later

in front of the mirror.

If I look closely, I can

see fine broken blood

vessels, not of age,

but joy of deflecting

one more shot on goal.

One more Thud! of joyful

pain, to rhapsodize over

a lifetime.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where,at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

BY ANY OTHER NAME: SPRING TRAINING ANGST

by Earl J. Wilcox

If some kids played it on the Pittsburgh

streets with only a Wiffle ball, a crooked

stick, and one lad to keep it from the gutters.

 

If they played it on a loamy garden patch

in an Arkansas village with a ball made

from old socks around a ball of twine.

 

If kids of any age and many sizes

played the game on a sandlot

in Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic.

 

Even if the Japanese kids decided to

practice ten hours a day just to make

the team for the family’s pride.

 

If the boys of summer began practice

in winter, in a game that no longer

uses bat boys, has no fans in the stands... 

 

And if this game has no hot dogs or

peanuts and Crackerjacks and many

players wear kerchiefs and masks

 

And if they can no longer blow bubble

gum or eat pumpkin seeds or swat each

other on the butt after a terrific play.

 

And if the balls and strikes are called

by a robot squatting behind the screen

in the stands or hovering in a drone.

 

We will still call this game BASEBALL.

 

Earl Wilcox dedicates this poem to the late Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose "Baseball Canto" remains the iconic tribute to our national pastime.

NO RESOLUTION

by j.lewis

Image from Breaking Burgh

again, the ball drops, but does not break
its descent carefully engineered to delight

again, the ball is fumbled, or intercepted
despite the carefully engineered play

again. the ball passes its mark in space
the carefully engineered orbit a quiet assurance

again, we wait, not for ball, but for hammer to drop
for the carefully engineered investigations to resolve

but the dropping ball,
wobbling pass,
eternal orbit,
special investigation
seem to have no end

again, an angry tweet that
"my button, my nuclear football
is bigger than yours"
pushes us closer to the dropping
of the other shoe
and no amount of careful engineering
will save us when it strikes the floor

j.lewis is an internationally published poet, musician, and nurse practitioner. His poetry and music reflect the complexity of human interactions, sometimes drawing inspiration from his experience in healthcare. When he is not otherwise occupied, he is often on a kayak, exploring and photographing the waterways near his home in California. A Clear Day in October, j.lewis’s first collection of poetry paired with his own photography, is available directly from E&GJ Press.

TO DENNIS RODMAN

by Rick Gray





Dennis, I hate to interrupt your cry
but the prisoners are ringing in my ears
and demanding I offer you another trip, or at least a smack.
They don't care if your piercing ruins my anonymous hand,

They are worked to death, and have been waiting for years for this.
There's no courts in the camps, though I hear the nets are everywhere.
Only the guards get to shoot. Dennis, I can't let them down.
Just like you cried, "I'm sorry. I'm just trying to help."

What's it like being so cool and eccentric?
Even when you say "I'm sorry" it sounds so ironic,
like your pink wedding dress. Marriage and divorce must be jokes
when you get to hang court side like Nicholson with the Dope.

Here's their suggestion, Dennis.
Instead of me hitting you, which you won't even feel,
The prisoners want you to play for real next time.
No more games. You go to a prison camp and just sit in solitary

and keep your metal smirk shut.
We'll do it it like the Aztecs.
If you eventually crack and start blubbering tears to the press, you lose,
and the prisoners cut off your famous head and have a ball.


Rick Gray has work currently appearing in Salamander and has an essay forthcoming in the book, Neither Here Nor There: An Anthology of Reverse Culture Shock. He served in the Peace Corps in Kenya and teaches in Kabul, Afghanistan.