"Better angels," "The catch," and "Embrace"

Better angels

Watching an old man

stumble in prime

time

the limbs of his mind

the ligaments

of his argument

strained to the point

of spraining

bruising, falling

down, make me almost

ask

has our country entered its dotage

 

(and who has power of attorney)

 

I would like to laugh since

America is more than prime

time, it’s an idea in the flesh.

 

Yes, in the beginning

there were words

big words, long sentences

your English teacher would tell you

no one should ever write like this:

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident . . .

“In the course of human events . . .

“We, the people  . . .

“Among the numerous advantages promised of a well-constructed union . . .”

 

And like any good pledge

so many a time so many of us

failed to match it

“All men are created equal”

never even got onto the wagon

before it had already fallen

off

 

But the pledge had been made

and we all heard it

 

And what it was, was how we,

the people believed

despite the fact that most of us

were not even citizens yet

that there are such things as better

angels roosting in our ideals

 

One day Douglass

One day Tubman

One day Lincoln

One day a tomb

for unknown soldiers

no matter how lowly

sprung including Marines

on Iwo Jima sands

like Fred Hayes

who were just “drunken

Indians” back home

 

Can you even picture what case

some Clarence Darrow will someday

make maybe a hundred or five hundred

years hence for our sake

 

Well, let’s make a case right now:

America 

 

Can a nation half slave

and half free

endure

Can a nation shut its doors

to the lives of half

of its citizens

are there enough prisons

to hold all the illegal dreams

American freedom spawns

Can freedom ring if we, the people

must pay for every bell chime?

 

We know the answer

which is why we are willing

to stand beside a doddering

old man because he says

however haltingly

 

“O, yes, I say it plain, 

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be”[1]

 

---

 

The catch

-for Willie Mays (1931-2024)

 

No one ever caught a ball the way Say

Hey Mays did how he spun and gunned

down the runner with an arm they might

have stuck on the deck of a destroyer

in the Pacific if baseball was a weapon

that broke barriers the way mortar shells

do

 

except mortars actually build walls

and Say Hey Mays brought them down

like Jackie Larry Satchell Newk Elston

and Roy he made the American Dream

a true thing (sort of) and while Willie

was a legend and the catch became

something no one would believe now

because of AI doctored videos deep fakes

you couldn’t/can’t fake talent like that.

 

The catch. People forget how deep the Polo

Grounds was in dead Centre it was practically

in the Harlem River at a time when an entire

island cost $24 and you could spy white tailed deer

on Morningside Heights and Long Island was

a pungent green before the Valley of Ashes

and Gatsby’s deception.

 

Who comes from Dixie and plants his flag

in the middle of Yankee Town without firing

a single shot or waving the Stars and Bars

on the back of a mule sure the catch is a stubborn

fact of history and Cleveland so heavily favored

went down four games to none because the South’s

greatest weapon always was the Great Migration

remaking the map of the American Mind while stealing

second and third and landing a shot in the triple top

deck where people ate 5 cent bags of peanuts in suits

and got off work for the afternoon game selling

insurance before gambling was on all the phones.

 

God, to have seen Willie who died around the same

time as Jim Lawson can you imagine the game

of catch they might have played sitting on either end

of a lunch counter in Nashville. No. That’s not fair.

God, such talent. Who else could torque the meaning

of everything from a frozen rope to the Beatitudes

and win America a seat at the table of brotherhood?

 

Rest in peace, these United States. Willie’s first name

actually was Willie and he really believed in you

and baseball just like Reverand Jim. God help us if we

forget them.

 

---

 

Embrace

-for James Lawson (1928-2024)

 

God is the urge

 

men build jails to cage

and purge

 

which is why she bites the warden

on his inner thigh

like an asp with a perfect nose

not the devil in divine clothes

 

God is lust

 

and ashes and dust

the water and the hose

bunions and blisters

shackles car batteries

and calipers

 

the general’s stache

the priest’s finger

a president who is

a dead ringer

for a child opening

his eyes and squalling

because

 

God drove him from a warm

bath drawn up by two tubes

and an egg, lawyers want

that gig, to become engineers

and decide the flow.

 

God,

you can’t keep

ideas locked up

they become

measures unheard

notes un-played

their absence

a presence on

the page

 

if the body keeps

the score

if tree rings bend

and are blent

by the ash of their

fruit

 

then surely God

God God my God

how many times can

we make up a word

that the silence surrounding

OM can’t retard

 

tattoo on your arm

in place of a name

burn the skin

efface the haste

where you vulcanized

the ink until the ground

 

travels through space

like the first cough

that initial binding

 

My God let’s just stop

talking and embrace.