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Morris Kantor
Baseball at Night
Analysis of Baseball
It's about
the ball,
the bat,
and the mitt.
Ball hits
bat, or it
hits mitt.
Bat doesn't
hit ball, bat
meets it.
Ball bounces
off bat, flies
air, or thuds
ground (dud)
or it
fits mitt.
Bat waits
for ball
to mate.
Ball hates
to take bat's
bait. Ball
flirts, bat's
late, don't
keep the date.
Ball goes in
(thwack) to
mitt,
and goes out
(thwack) back
to mitt.
Ball fits
mitt, but
not all
the time.
Sometimes
ball gets hit
(pow) when bat
meets it,
and sails
to a place
where mitt
has to quit
in disgrace.
That's about
the bases
loaded,
about 40,000
fans exploded.
It's about
the ball,
the bat,
the mitt,
the bases
and the fans.
It's done
on a diamond,
and for fun.
It's about
home, and it's
about run.
~ May Swenson ~
The Double Play
In his sea-lit
Distance, the pitcher winding
Like a clock about to chime comes down with
The ball, hit
Sharply, under the artificial
Banks of arc lights, bounds like a vanishing
String
Over the green
To the shortstop magically
Scoop to his right whirling above his
Invisible
Shadows
In the dust redirects
Its flight to the running poised second
Baseman
Pirouettes
Leaping, above the slide, to throw
From mid-air, across the colored tightened
Interval
To the leaning-
Out first baseman ends the dance
Drawing it disappearing into his long brown
Glove
Stretches. What
Is too swift for deception
Is final, lost, among the loosened figures
Jogging off the field
(the pitcher walks), casual
in the space where this poem has happened.
~ Robert Wallace ~
The Base StealerPoised between going on and back, pulled
Both ways taut like a tightrope-walker,
Fingertips pointing the opposites,
Now bouncing tiptoe like a dropped ball
Or a kid skipping rope, come on, come on,
Running a scattering of steps sidewise,
How he teeters, skitters, tingles, teases,
Taunts them, hovers like an ecstatic bird.
He’s only flirting, crowd him, crowd him,
Delicate, delicate, delicate, delicate…now!
~ Robert Francis ~
