Richard III (not Richard the Third)

This is one part of a nine-poem series called The Galilee Hitchhiker, first published as a chap book in the early 1960's, then included in a collection called "The Pill Versus the Spring Hill Mine Disaster" in 1968.

A Baseball Game

Part 7

Baudelaire went
to a baseball game
and bought a hot dog
and lit up a pipe
of opium.
The New York Yankees
were playing
the Detroit Tigers.
In the fourth inning
an angel committed
suicide by jumping
off a low cloud.
The angel landed on second base,
causing the
whole infield
to crack like
a huge mirror.

The game was
called on
account of
fear.

The Yankees, I suspect, were winning and the angel could not abide another smug, arrogant Yankee victory and this was his unselfish, heroic way of changing the outcome. Yes, he told himself, it's just a game, it's just one game in a long season, but that sense of entitlement, that smirk, that swagger -- someone has to put a stop to it, send them a sign, restore some balance to the world if only for an afternoon.

Of course, I do not think Brautigan was a Yankee-hater, I think he was a Baudelaire-lover and the angel incident was a Baudelaire hallucination. But I do wish someone would wipe that smirk off the Yankees faces.

Come to think of it, the Red Sox are doing a fair job of that this year, as is the Yankees bullpen.

What a great closing line, though: The game was called on account of fear. Wouldn't you love to hear James Earl Jones say that?