nfl?

every August

we want our men mean. Two gap,

run closing, nickel back secreting,

helmet-to-helmet, run fit loving,

clothes-liners, pancake,

bump and run, strong side,

mask grabbing, meniscus

tearing, wheel route,

screen pass catching,

skinny post mending,

40 time surpassing,

vertical leapers, place kick

takers, 50 yard makers,

bomb throwers,

slot absconders, jitter-bug

juridicals, fantasy psychologicals,

play book learners, subaverage intellectuals,

100 yard gamers,

Wonderlic pretenders,

Cartilage  strainers,

on an island encapsulators,

sack makers.

then

when the lover is knocked cold, bitten and chocked,

head butted or drug from an elevator

like a Trojan horse with a

belly of large stones,

does the cry of gentleness

fill the universe.

Reviews

[Ed Hart]

we'll be a long while yet trying to accommodate that primate practicality that takes care of the moment in the moment, and has no sense of history and no pre-sight at all...we'll be a long while yet trying to trade our instincts for cashmere and hot running water...meanwhile we're running out of everything

i like a serious pen

[Rita L. Sev]

You express perfectly what many of us feel, Dana.

[The Twin Arenas]

nice! great to see that another poet felt the same s**t I did about the league.
sport is generally, I think, one of the most beautiful things in the world. I get very emotional reading about athletics, or seeing it in person. It is a fascinating lens to look at the modern world through.
It's a constant, actual metaphor for everything.
Thanks for this. What a wonderful ending.

[The Twin Arenas]

this poem really moved me, man. I'm a sucker for athletics, though. hahaha. also listening to Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On Record," so, y'know, always pretty much a blubbering mess when I listen to that one. Anyway, great poem. I'm a huge fan of art and sport colliding.

[Delmar Cooper]

Well put. To me there is no excuse for violence. Which ipso facto ditches the NFL and Roadrunner Cartoons, but still violence saddens me. I thought your poem was very well witten and you know the drill.

[K. Louis]

I've never liked the nfl.

[Tree]

great message. Not robots, d. It's the same with our men and women who we train to kill then come back with blood on their hands and deep, and profound emotional problems. And that video, the hook in the elevator, the collapse of a career and possibly a relationship; well, it also floored the entire country. On structure and flow, I thought you killed it. This piece fell down the slope of a mountain, then got up and walked away.

I loved this piece


Diego