Open your eyes
Take a breath
Get out of bed
Get yourself dressed
Go to school
Talk to friends
Ignore the nagging feeling
Practice sports
Eat food
Don’t throw it up
Choke it down
Talk to friends
3rd period never ends
Think about life
Stop thinking about life
Walk to class
Study and stress
Volunteer
Extra work
Don’t fall behind
Honor grad
Grab your throat
Take a breath
Eat your lunch
Don’t throw it up
Talk to friends
Stress fever
Push it down
You don’t feel it
AP classes more and more
Don’t cry tears galore
Mama’s class
Sleep through it
You can speak
Swallow the glass
Loud noise
Small band
Your times in high demand
Get ready
Sports once more
Fail again
Again
Again
Go home
Eat food
Don’t let yourself puke
Do homework
Study more
Clean up
Do your chores
Take your pill
Toss and turn
Wake up
Open your eyes
Olympic stuff ain’t easy
I’ve false started many times
At the traffic lights
At meal times
Conversations in the office lounge area
And other events I’d rather not mention
Alright go on then
Let me fill you in
At McDonald’s
At the flipping birds
At peristerophobia
At the park
Pole vaulting is not a dangerous sport
But the internet has told me
Even though a pole requires
A hefty investment
It is necessary
~~~~Let's Go Oakland!~~~
Beat the Tampa Bay Rays!
50,000 fans heading your way to watch you play,
In this very exciting Wild Card Game.
There will be no hearings as to who won the game,
Nor, if Russia colluded to put you to shame!
That's what I like about sports, it is win or lose!!
And~honey! Three strikes and you're out....
There is no sour-puss losing,
The winning is clear and that is the end!
Champions know how to accept a win or a defeat.
Losers love the word, "cheat."
October 2, 2019
We played sports
on asphalt fields
drains and sewer lids
for bases
Billy’s house the right field line
Tommy’s porch
a short left field.
We diagramed
football plays
bottle caps, fractured marbles,
Mikey’s favorite button.
The ball was scuffed
bladder worn
sticking out where it was torn.
The jump rope slapped
sidewalk cracks
sneakers tapped the beat
“Double Dutch” amazingly
twin passing ropes
a double feat.
Baseball cards trilled old bike spokes
roller skates click-clacking by
racing as street lights curfew
silenced the hum of play
returned the quiet of the night
to those who’d worked all day.
John G. Lawless
©2/10/2019
In the Year two thousand and seventeen
athletics world certainly got a jolt
something they shouldn't have ever seen
defeated hero, the amazing Usain Bolt,
eight men over a short distanced battling
for a gold medal in the world championships
beaten by athletics villain, Justin Gatlin
jeering and booing from sad people's lips.
Gatlin may have won race and gold medal
spectators all over the world ready to revolt,
not willing to support an athletic rebel
especially denying hero, Usain Bolt.
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