Game 44: Reds 7, Mets 4

I know the woe of indecision,
whether to pluck that fair flower
and suffer the run of extrication
or remain stuck in foul business.

That awful, slow decay
corrupts in bright and florid summer,
and a day which is not foul
is all the more foul for being fair.

Lately bursts of helium in May
tousle golden curls in sunlit day;
a torturer in iridescent blue
forestalls the birth of something new.

Game 43: Reds 4, Mets 0

Look around, because this is grave:
you can cut and paste your name,
but you can't make it live on mud.
And you can't kill what's dead,
what's festering, what Leakes your blood,
locked away, forgotten.
Somewhere, the voodoo's sepulchre
holds a freshly blistering bud,
oblivious to its death-marked love.
It weeps into the wood.

Game 42: Reds 4, Mets 3

A little Byrd told me
not to go to Cuet-- o!
He flew away and I fell further
down into the abyss.
Like Isaac, flailing stupidly,
railing at myself for my fate,
and the cruel universe which lifted me up
and gave me happiness
only to make that moment of despair the worse,
knowing I am too old and too young,
in a perpetual moment of fecklessness.
There's great energy in oil,
but unrefined, it's just sludge
and a murmuring ugliness.

Game 41: Mets 4, Cubs 3

I once had good Wood
and pitched it craftily, well enough,
and made the long run home
to the bed of my paramour.
But a young man, oblivious,
the inevitable Wine Press,
stepped up to tie the score,
to fill the void that I made,
quite reluctantly.
I was swept under the furniture,
cast out on Waveland Ave.,
before I knew I'd lost.

Game 40: Cubs 8, Mets 2

I know what it feels like to swing and miss
again and again and again, Ike Davis.
I know how the look on her face
betrays the misdirection of my sallies.
I know a hard line drive
straight to death and despair.
I know all the popped flies,
and moments of fleeting wonder,
if maybe I still have it and maybe I--
should have settled into the swing
that worked, the one that won my fame.
And now, hobbled in hopelessness,
unsure of my arm and my bat,
I whimper in quotidian uselessness
as their ephemeral laughs that seem like sempiternal infamy
echo in my head before, during, and after
every out.

Game 39: Mets 3, Cubs 2

Shall I compare thee to Chicago day?
Thou art possessed of better repertoire.
Rough winds do shake the darling Cubs of May,
And Harvey's leash is all too short to mar.
Sometime too quick the dugout's man does whine,
And often is his fair perplexion wimmed;
And older arms to shreds will, ripped, decline,
By chance, or Terry's overuse, untrimmed;
But thy eternal heater shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that zip thou ow'st,
Nor shall regression hide you in his shade,
When in eternal stare you dare you know'st.
So long as Mets can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives Matt, and Matt gives life to we.

Game 38: Mets 5, Cardinals 2

It was Niese to see
(though I did not see)
a flailing Buck, a moving target
finally hunted down.
Or was it simply Luck--
eager branches scratching for blood,
and well-placed peregrines?

Game 37: Cardinals 4, Mets 2

Marcum up:

My red left ankle
made my day for now,
lifted a winsome whistle while we wistfully waited,
wondering if:
the seventh time would be the charm?

Marcum out.

White Rice suffered an Ankiel injury,
wafted whiffleballs wantonly,
angrily inside,
wildly welcomed in the winning run,
and walked Wiggington with another one inside.

Game 36: Cardinals 10, Mets 4

The Carlos Beltran is a bird,
beautiful, rare, spectacular,
but sad in his dazzling plumage
because he cannot be known.
Glimpse! But look, and he is dull,
lifeless, coarse, and quiet.
There's no sweet security
in his facile tenderness, no
dynastic felicity.
There is beauty.
Do not say that beauty "fades"--
It flashes.

Written 5/21; predated.

Game 35: Cardinals 6, Mets 3

Montesquieu found the English jury trial
birthed in the German forests.
These barbarians would kill, blood for blood;
nothing could remove the right of vengeance
but acceptance of a settlement,
pecuniary, final.
The guilty man paid the lord his fredum,
for protection from blood vengeance:
the law secured justice for the guilty man.
That judgment is best which comes from oneself,
or from the necessity of the thing,
and not from will, or power arbitrary and absolute.
Judges have gavels, not coffers nor swords,
and that umpire is best who is unknown.
Here's to you, Tim Timmons.

Written 5/21; predated.