Blog Archives - Bulls Bard--The Verses

Game 14

11/28/2015

CHI 92 IND 104

Chicago and
Texas.

Two places
Uninhabitable
On the wrong day.

Two places
Burning badly
In the wrong spots.

Two places
Experiencing
Drought.

Absence
And longing,

When they are
Actual things
And not just
Ideas,

Create a
Very
Real
Danger.

Flash flood conditions.

When it comes,
It comes quick
And fierce.

Long-needed rainfall
Moving in mad.

Pounding dirt
Into rock
And rock
Into dust.

Forcing streets
Into rivers
And rivers
To rapids.

Never quite soaking in
Or replenishing anything.

Just making them more precarious.
More combustible.

Everything
A wildfire

Waiting
For a spark.

#HoopsHaiku

Listening to rain
As I try to fall asleep
Thinking about droughts.

Game 13

11/25/2015

CHI 93 POR 88

Basketball is pond water
Dripped on a flat glass slide--

Covered
And placed
Perfect
Between light
And lens.

Particles
That are separate only
Through our naming them.

That move
Together
Intimately.

Despite our watching
Rather than because of it.

Expanding and
Contracting
Like breath

Like people running
From the wreckage
That threatens
To swallow us--

Grey clouds of smoke
Through grey city streets.

Everything moving
As schools of fish.
As waves.

One million
Neighborhood children
On the same
Sizzling
Summer day.

Enchanted
By a ringing bell

Bound by a sound
Like the hypnotist’s
Volunteer.

Basketball is
The number one--
Taken apart
And forced back together.

#HoopsHaiku

Jo stays down on D
And the whole crowd vanishes--
The blink of an eye.

Cripplingly proud
And just short of good enough--
Damian Lillard

Game 12

11/21/2015

CHI 94 GSW 106

Two Memories Involving Falling

One

When I was little--
About a thousand years ago--
My teacher showed a film.

It was about people--
More than one,
Mind you--
Whose mission it had been
To defeat Niagara Falls.

They thought they’d be safe
In pickle-barrels.

Literally barrelling down at
Literally breakneck speeds--

To their deaths
(usually by broken neck,
I assume).

Test pilots
Testing the
Most
Basic
Principles.

Rodeo clowns
When the bulls are
Gravity and
Inevitability.

Now,
On the other hand,
Billionaires in space suits
Are jumping from the moon.

Two

a squirrel
found a coconut
in the compost pile.

a young coconut
wrapped tight
in white spongy
husk.

two times the size
of the squirrel
and ten times the size
of his head.

but that didn’t stop him.

he must’ve climbed that tree
a thousand times--

backwards

his tiny little face
strained and hopeful
and dug in--

only to drop his prize
time after time

and dash down
after it.

and each time,
he was
right
there.

a tiny stallion

racing gravity
down a tree

and almost winning
every time.

except,
i’m not really sure
almost winning
is a thing.

Game 11

11/19/2015

CHI 103 PHX 97

I’ve never been all the way sure
How to play with children
Once they reach a certain age.

Once they move beyond
The phase of pure imagination.

Once they go
From collaborative
To competitive.

Once we are playing
Against
Each other.

Am I supposed to let them win?

That’s how I see a lot of people play it.

But what kind of lessons
Does that teach them?

Honestly?

Beacause
The truth is:
If this were for real
I would absolutely destroy them.

I mean,
They’re little kids.

So what is this?

Some strange lesson in pity
Or privilege?

The virtues of cuteness and manipulation?

That it doesn’t take work
To achieve life’s victories.

Feels like scattering some toxic seeds.
And it goes against something
Inside of me.

Puts sour taste
In my mouth--
Like I’ve given up
On more than just the game.

So I let them stay close.

I let my guard down
Just enough
To keep it fun.

I try to use it as a chance
To teach good lessons.

At least
I think I do.

But kids are so damn weird
And fragile--

And so sometimes I worry
That I’ve got it all wrong.

That the only lesson
That even matters is:
Anything is possible.

Game 10

11/17/2015

CHI 96 IND 95

There is something that happens to people
Who are in love
With deeply flawed partners (and parents).

Alcoholics and addicts
And such.

There is a certain feeling--

Fear maybe,
Or resignation--

Some very real understanding
Of the temporal nature
Of everything.

Of happiness.

Of togetherness.

Broken
Twisted
Wisdom.

But wisdom
Nonetheless.

Like a suit of armor--
Heavy,
But strong.

#HoopsHaiku

Too many scapegoats.
Too many easy answers.
We needed that win.

Not quite irony:
Derrick rolling his ankle
During his best game.

Game 9

11/14/2015

CHI 102 CHA 97

I had to go to work
Thirty minutes after burying my cat.

She had been missing for several days
And I finally found her
Stiffly nuzzled
Among the trees.

I loved this cat--
Elsie was her name--
(L.C. really--short for Little Chloe)
Named after her mother.

Best hunter
And most affectionate.

Raspy little voice
And scratchy little kisses.

I fucking loved this cat.
I remember the day she was born.

So,
I buried her
And went to wait tables.

As if the job wasn't
Phony enough
Already.

As if the line
Between what matters
And what does not
Needed to be any more clear.

#HoopsHaiku

Things happen sometimes--
Real things that remind us that
This is just a game.
#Paris

Noah and Batum
Both have family in Paris.
The show must go on.
#ThatsEntertainment

Game 8

11/10/2015

CHI 111 PHI 88

I am a little brother.

2 ½ years younger than Dave,
My hero growing up
And sometimes still.

I was an absolute fucking pest--
Pinching and
Punching,
Biting
And tickling.

A series of tests--

Not of dominance
But of limitations.
Borderlines.

A blind man
Tap-tap-tapping my cane
Wherever it seemed to fit.

Until one day
He had had enough.

I was two years old.

As nicely as he could
While still making his point,
Dave pulled a pillow off the couch
And swung.

The way I remember it:

The pillow swept me up
Off the ground
and I stuck to it,
Like the wall of the Gravitron.

Held by centrifugal force
For what seemed
Forever.

Long enough to learn my lesson
Before thudding back down
To the carpet.

My very first
Bodyslam.
And my very last
Fight with my big brother.

At least,
That’s how I remember it.

I wonder how Philly
Will remember this one.

Game 7

11/8/2015

CHI 93 MIN 102

#1

I don’t have a tv,
So I watch the games on my computer.

I stream them through various websites.

Huge pain in the ass,

But I’ve been getting along this way
For the last several years.

(Getting along, by the way
Is how my grandmother used to answer the question:
How are you?

“Oh I’m getting along.”

She would then go on
To explain how her retirement home
Was like a concentration Camp.

Hyperbole, it seems, is genetic.)

About 5 seconds into
Overtime
My feed froze.

Well not so much froze as
Got stuck in a loop.

Pop-ups everywhere.

Robot voices issuing warnings
Like a Disney World Paul Revere--
A useless noisy mess.

And the little rainbow wheel--
The face of futility--
Reflected in my eyes.

And that
Was the end
Of that.

#2

I’ve been searching for a metaphor
To help me understand

This particular brand of
Disappointment.

This
Anti-climax.

Maybe this is
(the tiniest little bit)
What it’s like to be a woman.

Sexually, I mean.
With a man, I mean.

Putting in all that work--
Well, I’m not sure work is the right way to say it--

But all that time
Exchanging energy
As equals--

All that give and take.
All those waves of momentum.

Just to have things end so
One-sidedly.

It’s bullshit.

Game 6

11/6/2015

CHI 104 OKC 98

I'm going to write a children’s book:
Rosey and Russy in the Summertime

It’s about an unlikely pair of friends:
An adolescent tiger cub
And a wild young rhinoceros.

They come from different parts of the jungle
And on the surface
Seem to have little in common--

Other than their strength.
And their speed.

Rosey the Tiger
Is quiet.
Mild mannered.
The youngest of a litter of five.

Territorial.

Russy the Rhino is just the opposite.
Loud.
Barreling and brawling.

Stomping and smashing
A path to wherever.

One summer day
When the jungle is slow--

Thick and wet
Like a dirty sponge--

The boys get restless (as young boys will)
And roam off
To chase prey.

To play.

They happen upon the same lake
Replete with herbivores.

They are distrustful
At first.

Rightly so.
They are predators
Competing
In a real-ass jungle.

But soon they are meeting daily.
Stomping and slashing.
Laughing and killing.

It will be a series.

They will have all sorts of adventures--
Face all sorts of tribulations along the way.

And their packs will compete for limited resources
Forcing them against one another.

But in the summertime
When the jungle is slow--
Thick and wet
Like New Orleans mud--

The boys get restless (as young boys will)
And roam off
To chase prey.

To play.

#HoopsHaiku

Joakim on Derrick:
“Sometimes he says crazy shit,
Gets him in trouble.”

Rose on the gossip:
“All I can do is play ball--
I’m numb to it, man.”

Nikki on haters:
“A hundred mother fuckers
Can’t tell me nothin’.”

Game 5

11/4/2015

CHI 105 CHA 130

I was a fighter
When I was a kid.

My very first fight
Was against my father.

He won.

But I learned from the loss.

I learned the importance of size.
Strength.
Intimidation.

But more importantly

I learned
That violence
And rage
Are tools

Used for teaching lessons.

#HoopsHaiku

I’ve learned my lesson
On more than one occasion
From an ass-kicking.

Free Bobby Portis--
Let the beast out of the cage--
All hail Crazy-Eyes!

Tom Thibodeau is
Rolling over in his grave--
One hundred thirty?!