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7 Nov: "Forgiving Buckner" by John Hodgen

The world is always rolling between our legs.
It comes for us, dribbler, slow roller,
humming its goat song, easy as pie.

We spit in our gloves, bend our stiff knees,
keep it in front of us, our fathers' advice,
but we miss it every time, its physic, its science,
and it bleeds on through, blue streak, heart sore,
to the four-leaf clovers deep in right field.

The runner scores, knight in white armor,
the others out leaping, bumptious, gladhanding,
your net come up empty, Jonah again.
Even the dance of the dead won't come near you,
heart in your throat, holy of holies,
the oh of your mouth as the stone rolls away,
as if it had come from before you were born
to roll past your life to the end of the world,
till the world comes around again, gathering steam,
heading right for us again and again,
faith of our fathers, world without end.

4 comments:

  1. A response from earlier this year.

    "as if it had come from before you were born to roll past your life to the end of the world, till the world comes around again, gathering steam, heading right for us again and again, faith of our fathers, world without end." That sounds torturous. Destined to be the cause of every Red Sox's misery, haha. Or to just constantly fall short

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  2. The American game- I can't feel the love here, as if the author plays for his "father"'s advice, for the tradition, but not because he truly believes in it. Monotonous garble, sad, just filling a hole, a position...not present, only on defense. A baseball purgatory "the world is always rolling between our legs".

    If I knew more about baseball, I might understand your Red Sox reference :(

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  3. Never ending bad luck. Or destined to be unlucky or miss out. It is a very cool baseball analogy for life. It seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    The Red Sox's Fans used to think they were cursed for trading Babe Ruth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Bambino

    The Red Sox lost a World Series because of this play. Part of the curse of course. Haha, it is very famous. Red Sox fans are crazy too. Watch the Fever Pitch.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18caPNisP2U

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