Best Athletics Poems

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...

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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...

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   ~~~~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...

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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...

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These are the best sports poems by Michael R. Burch, Part V

Just Smile
by Michael R. Burch

We'd like to think some angel smiling down
will watch him as his arm bleeds in the yard, 
ripped off by dogs, will guide his tipsy steps, 
his doddering progress through...

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Our granddaughter’s playing soccer again…she’s the goalie on her team
and in some ways as I watch her…it’s like I’m reliving a dream….

You see I grew up thinking I was an athlete…what other conclusion could I draw…
when I looked into the mirror…an athlete was who I...

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The best sports poems by Michael R. Burch, Part IV

King Henry the Great
by Michael R. Burch

Long live the King! 
Send him victorious, 
happy and glorious, 
long to reign over us: 
Long live the King! 

Long live the King! 
Send him like Sherman tanks
Mowing down cornerbacks,...

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These are the best sports poems by Michael R. Burch, Part II

The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,
reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness
as remembered as the sudden light.



Me?
Whee!
(I stole this poem
from Muhammad Ali.)
—Michael R. Burch



superstar(stuporstar) 
by Michael...

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These are the best sports poems by Michael R. Burch, Part III

For Jack Nicklaus, at the 1987 Open
by Michael R. Burch

When you were young
every putt was makeable
and every dream remarkable; 
the stars were unmistakable
you set your sights upon.

Then, in your youth, 
time not yet a...

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Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around...

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