No matter how despicable the mire
in which we find ourselves, there’s always hope.
Just raise your eyes – a sunny upper slope
is beckoning. We hanker. We aspire.
Caruso, Bluto, Joe Dimaggio –
then, afternoons were easy. Men were men.
Those certainties will never come again.
We’re exiled from the dear, dead long ago.
Forever prancing forward, harking back,
we don’t suppose This Moment will be missed.
But life is Monitor or Merrimack:
trajectories seem smooth, but have a twist.
The train is what’s important, not the track:
the Present’s where we happen to exist.
~ Reminiscent of 'Where have you gone,
Joe Dimaggio,' from the soundtrack
of the movie, 'The Graduate.' ~
Where have you gone, O Pinocchio
a nation turns its aching heart to you
Fi-fie-phoo…
Though you became a donkey
wooden head, check out Mamdani
~ He’s the stubborn mule
Mona Lisa’s crooked smile
on a half-crushed Campbell’s Soup can
Joe Dimaggio reciting his pronouns uneasily
then lowering his batting hand
into a scalding hot cup
of ‘Mr. Coffee’
Where have you gone, Mrs. Robinson?
Where else? to the bathroom
~ Hemorrhoids again
Barney Fife whittling Andy’s image to
sawdust with a rusty pocket-knife
-- contracting tetanus in the process
Andy Warhol grinning madly as the
word ‘culture’ is finally eliminated
from America’s lexicon
~ All hail to pink, plastic flamingoes! ~
Without you, everything I do
loses value every day.
Habitual things that mattered,
yesterday,
are hard to do, today.
Yoga in the morning,
even my daily poetry,
have suddenly lost their meaning,
and I tend to oversleep.
These give the lie to any thought
that I do these things for myself.
I do have some small insight,
even though you are gone but for a few days,
of what a dreadful drain it must be,
when someone's loved one dies,
an enormous black hole that
threatens to pull you in.
But, I know you are coming back,
and what I would like to save,
is the memory of a warm day
in Martinez, while we waited
for the train, of antique shops,
hot dogs and Joe DiMaggio,
a warm park bench where
we watched the joggers
round the park and the trains
all come and go.
Some languid talk,
nothing very important,
but I have a hard time thinking
of time I've better spent,
and feel the tragedy
of our lives, that such moments
are so far apart.
Joe DiMaggio
was never a Joe Namath
both had New York’s pride
Remembering the days way back when
Baseball was what made life tick
Lived and breathed that wonderful game
With the Babe, Ted Williams, and the Mick
Jackie Robinson breaking the colour barrier
Sweet memories inhabit my brain
Jackie was the absolute first hero of mine
Brought equality to this time honoured game
Stan Musial, Bob Feller, and Joe DiMaggio
From a much simpler era, these names
When salaries hadn't yet become astronomical
They played for the love of the game
How many remember the powerhouse Yankees
Every year the cream of the crop
They were always a perpetual Series contender
Seemed like the Yanks were always on top
Those days are gone but sure not forgotten
In the recesses of this old mind
Can still see Ted hitting one over the fence
In my mind, it's nineteen-forty nine
© Jack Ellison 2013
It is rare when a woman is interested in a ball game.
However, your excuse for going is pretty lame.
There is not a single fact of baseball you know.
You could not tell Babe Ruth from Joe DiMaggio.
And that fact unfortunately is just the beginning.
Each part of the game is not a “quarter”, but an “inning”.
Chalk this one up as another hair brained scheme.
The goal you wish to attain is a pipe dream.
That is a concrete fact nobody can deny.
You wear expensive clothes hoping to catch their eye.
Many women would like to be a ball player’s honey.
After all, they do make an awful lot of money.
Here is something I have to point out that is true.
Not one of these players will be interested in you.
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