I am from spaghetti
from tomato pie and pigs feet dipped in sause
I am from mt Italian neighborhood
(treeless city streets.
I am from my grandfather's house
who I never met
I am from yellow Duncan yo yos
and Wiffle ball bats
I am from the Aunt
who loved me like a mother
The bus rides to Asbury Park
sitting 'round the pool deck in
wooden lounge chairs.
The sting in my nose from a salty ocean
The sand in my hair
to neon rides in the twilight.
I am from those moments memories are made;
Days so swiftly squandered away
Categories:
wiffle ball, city, ocean,
Form: Free verse
The Park Contest
Sponsor: Craig Cornish
Somewhere between a toddler and a teen,
I carried visions of my future days.
It was just us, my sweetest friend Christine,
at our neighborhood park we loved to play.
Wiffle ball, pizza boxes as bases,
mother made the home plate using rubber.
Used chalk as a starting line in races,
Christine struggled, while I was a slugger.
Walking Coco without using a leash,
such a time of innocence not peril.
No danger jumping in the piles of leaves,
playing past sundown spinning the windmill.
I dreamed of showing my children the park,
But commercial real estate broke my heart.
Date Written: February 15, 2016
Poetry Form: Shakespearean Sonnet
Categories:
wiffle ball, beauty, childhood, nature,
Form: Sonnet
Brown black centipedes crawl from within the white washed walls
Their shadows, creeping and quick, are cast througout the halls
Echoing thoughts bring a crashing sound to my ears, clattering
Music buried deep evokes what my mind hears, shattering
Rumpled white sky drifts like a melting glacier, carved flat
Or floats like a wiffle ball hit by this Summer game's yellow bat
Like this golden silver streak that now threads the monet-like sky
Emerging fire I behold with my stupored, half-shut eyes
The breeze tickles my doughy molded face with the stinging red roses
After a day journeying inward, my shelled body reposes
Encased like a cracked but unbroken nut, fading after the sun has ripened
And this hummus colored sun, now amber rose as it sinks, spreads the horizon
And the surrounding land, its bumpy rough edges and valleys, is slowly widening
Categories:
wiffle ball, depression, hope, life, sad,
Form: Prose Poetry
Sometimes an old song or an old movie can revive memories
If only we were able to reach back
Recapture the feelings, the simple joys, the dreams
To reach back and touch the moments
That first ice cream soda from the corner drug store
Peeling open a pack of baseball cards and
Trading with a friend for a favorite rookie
Frankenstein on the Late Show on Friday night
Dance in the auditorium, Hey! She’s wearing culottes
Sponge ball at the five and ten, up against the house
A small nail and electrical tape to fix the bat
The balcony on a Saturday night, keep dreaming
Chase tag, hide and seek in the street
King of the mountain in the old park
To reach back and have those feelings again
Pack of Luckies in the shirt sleeve
Hustling a game in the pool hall
Sunday ride to Grandma’s house
Free movie in the playground on a summer night
Keeping stats for a wiffle ball league
Wrap around skirts and pedal pushers
Bobbie socks and Bobbie pins
White bucks and Butch wax
Juke box hits six for a quarter
Slow dance, save the last one for me
If only we were able to reach back
Categories:
wiffle ball, nostalgiaold, old, drug,
Form: Free verse
Sometimes I'll close my eyes
And go back to yesterday's dreams
Where love had no disguise
A simpler life it seems
Men working in the mines
Mother's making quilts with yarns
Red Man chewing tobacco signs
Painted on the sides of barns
A quiet ride through the countryside
On a Sunday afternoon
Couldn't bring them back if we tried
Those days went by too soon
I can hear my Mother calling
Hey Vince, go find Joe and John
Dad's going to be coming home
And I'm putting supper on
Playing Wiffle ball in an old lot
Free movies in the park
Sharing everything we got
Playing until after dark
Yesterday's dreams carry me away
To a time when love was new
To a summer night and a sunny day
And the sky was always blue.
Categories:
wiffle ball, nostalgia, love,
Form: Bio