Sports Poems
Slam, Dunk, & Hook
by Yusef Komunyakaa
Fast breaks. Lay ups. With Mercury's
Insignia on our sneakers,
We outmaneuvered to footwork
Of bad angels. Nothing but a hot
Swish of strings like silk
Ten feet out. In the roundhouse
Labyrinth our bodies
Created, we could almost
Last forever, poised in midair
Like storybook sea monsters.
......
To Swim, To Believe
by Maxine Kumin
The beautiful excess of Jesus on the waters
is with me now in the Boles Natatorium.
This bud of me exults, giving witness:
these flippers that rose up to be arms.
These strings drawn to be fingers.
Legs plumped to make my useful fork.
Each time I tear this seam to enter,
all that I carry is taken from me,
shucked in the dive.
Lovers, children, even words go under.
......
The Shirt
by Carol Ann Duffy
Afterwards, I found him alone at the bar
and asked him what went wrong. It's the shirt,
he said. When I pull it on it hangs on my back
like a shroud, or a poisoned jerkin from Grimm
seeping its curse onto my skin, the worst tattoo.
I shower and shave before I shrug on the shirt,
......
The Pike
by Theodore Roethke
The river turns,
Leaving a place for the eye to rest,
A furred, a rocky pool,
A bottom of water.
The crabs tilt and eat, leisurely,
And the small fish lie, without shadow, motionless,
Or drift lazily in and out of the weeds.
The bottom-stones shimmer back their irregular striations,
And the half-sunken branch bends away from the gazer's eye.
......
Pheidippedes' Daughter
by Gillian Clarke
Long silver girl who slipped easy
and early from the womb's waters,
whose child-breath was a bird in a cage,
the inhaler in her fist her amulet,
grew tall, beautiful, caught her breath,
outran the hound, the hare, the myth,
the otter, salmon, swallow, hawk,
the river, the road, the track.
......
AssLetes
by Jeffrey Pipes Guice
We used to praise you as our heroes
On the fields and on the courts...
We cheered you on so feverishly
In the world of professional sports...
We were proud to wear your jerseys
And memorized all your stats...
We were fiercely proud of you
We even called ourselves the Who Dats...
......
Wimbeldon
by Prabhakar Belavadi
june 20th arriving
players warm up in full swing
glittering trophies
What are Golfers not telling us?
by Dr. Robert Ippaso
There’s a part of me that say’s I’m jealous
Another thinks my golfing friends just zealous,
Whilst I crave fresh air and healthy motion
They’re busy slathering on the lotion
Before they mount some little cart
That with intent they simply point to dart
At breakneck speed from hole to hole
The putting of that little ball the goal.
Then there’s the clubs, that myriad bunch
......
The Roller in the Woods
by Kit Wright
Who would imagine a cricket ground
Had ever existed here,
Folded into a farm on the downland pasture,
Lapping the edge of the oakwood
And the buttercup-quilted rides?
For the Toll is returned to plough
After a century of combat,
Sown to a sea of blue-green waves
Beneath which it lies drowned.
And now,
......
The Pike
by Theodore Roethke
The river turns,
Leaving a place for the eye to rest,
A furred, a rocky pool,
A bottom of water.
The crabs tilt and eat, leisurely,
And the small fish lie, without shadow, motionless,
Or drift lazily in and out of the weeds.
The bottom-stones shimmer back their irregular striations,
And the half-sunken branch bends away from the gazer's eye.
......
