1369

MAKING IT UP TO THE LEGEND OF BASEBALL

I've neglected you, o American pastime
And you, too, concept of personal duty, have I allowed to languish
In a perpetual pre-dawn glow of information consumerism.
Feeders of birds on the street,
Functional architecture people,
Middle school students in the midwest and doctors in California,
Non-denominational (anti-demonization) prayer groups,
Indie rockers,
Practically everyone who can carry the suffix -enthusiast
Without cracking down the middle under its weight.
Language poets, New formalists, and especially you reviewers
Of poetry collections who bravely continue to alert the public
To the existence of language poets and new formalists
Neither of which camp your books under review have ever attended,
You, it would seem, are among the few I have not shortchanged
When budgeting my focused, laserlike attention. In the future,
Be prepared to go without quite so many of my scalding ripostes,
Which I am now reserving for my potential enemies
Among watchers of The O.C., Prius drivers,
The 52 million purchasers of sexual devices,
And editors of popular web sites. Hate is hardly the opposite of love.
From here to 44th Street I have declared a zone
Of profound, generous excitement for the game Abner Doubleday
Adapted to our native needs. We shall be as a people (I mean myself)
Moved deeply by the creators of new insight-unveiling statistics,
Letting go of Avg, HR, RBI so that we may see the patterns in the grass anew,
Taste the cotton candy afresh. You will never have seen
The likes of this devotion.