Richard Biscayart

WHAT KIND OF BIRTHDAY BASEBALL SHIP IS THIS?

This is a great birthday ship you told me to sail around in
But you didn’t mention anything about baseball
Will there be baseball there on the birthday ship?
Or where the ship will eventually dock…will there be baseball there too?
Also, even though this is a great birthday ship you’re telling me about
I need to know several things before I agree to accept it
First, will there be baseball somewhere, be it on the ship or where we sail to
And if so, how many baseballs games we will plan to visit on my birthday ship
Because I like birthdays a great deal, especially cake and candles
But baseball is my main concern. A birthday concern if you will.
Cricket is another concern that’s not quite as urgent as baseball
Also, will there be cheese doodles or pretzels
Because baseball may as well be tricycle without pretzels or doodles
Also, is my birthday ship equipped with doorbells or at least one door knocker
Because the last time I imagined a birthday ship it had plenty of doorbells
And the food was pretty good too
Also, if I requested a new pillow on my new birthday ship, who would bring it to me?
Would someone arrive suddenly with clean white pillows?
Or would I wait all night for dirty pillows on my new birthday ship?
Also, how many times will they sing happy birthday to me on my new birthday ship?
I ask this because I always thought three times was a bit too much
Like yeah yeah, you said that twice already…stop singing happy birthday to me
Just because it’s a birthday ship doesn’t mean you need to sing so much.
Before I forget to ask, I enjoy a quiet barbecue breakfast each morning in my baseball pants
I don’t want to know that someone was offended by my barbecue breakfast
Because if that’s the kind of birthday baseball ship this is, then I don’t want it

Andrew Boerum

 

ON THIS PLANET OF ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES

When the world began it was molten, hot and steaming
truncheons of palm-like trees held up the sky.
When the world began in a sway and largesse of kindness
birds swam and fishes climbed unimagined trees
so many that my hair, the world’s first woman
my hair was thick with them humming

and you standing alone, staring at horizons
each one tumbling farther
into the distance
and me the first woman to be born in an imagination of no-one
with hair that swarmed with life and feathers.
Your face was a sunrise and you held me, yes
you held me
in our lair of cinnamon mountains --
tho no one had named them.
You name them, you said, yes, you name them!
I tried and all I could think of was what I felt, so I named them

heartfelt, laughter, tears of the forest, she whose heart bleeds; you

laughed at that, though not unkindly, rather, you held me more

closely, called me silly.
ok, I said, she whose heart turns somersaults
she whose heart is a village.
Time had not been thought of
space was what we slept in
somersaults were what stars did
each morning
before sunrise drowned them
when moons rippled round the sky
faster than the speed of sound
and sound was simple
sound was a heartbeat
drumming in streams
that ran from somewhere
to nowhere
and back up mountains
on this planet of offspring and fantasy
this planet of nonchalance and sympathy
on this planet of mercurial growth and endless energy
this planet of moons and rings of saturns
this planet of frogs and crocuses
on this planet earth
this jupiter of morning
our morning full of grace
and our homecoming

and I wake to see you
lying there beside me, breathing

-- your breath on my face
and us waking, just that --

us waking.

Geraldine Green

Abandoned · Lady