Religion at First Sight

by Mark Blaeuer

Our catcher lofts a magic souvenir
down the right field line. Stinging my
hands, his globe fashioned of antique horsehide
with (miniscule in sweet spot, India ink)
an eephus entitled “Rube”—To live in such a place
is something. To work every day at something
is something more, and to love baseball is something
else. High-driven sphere upon our sanctified
bleachers.

Riff on the Simple Answerto the Ultimate Question

by Mark Blaeuer

Divinely, Jackie Robinson
of Dodgers fame walked out: New York,
up Gower street, yet dwelling on
gigantic bears who punished pork-
ly kids appalled
at Elisha the Bald.

So all Egyptian deities
a rainbow of molybdenum
did huff, begetting Jesus-knees
and Catalan’s Talmudic sum.
My tongue, I wot,
surpriseth Their robot.

Turn now to Billy yearning here:
his Juliet is comatose,
embedded in the very near
half-century, her cricket dose.
If paradise sport pips,
TIFF Elvis hips.

Connect two more antipodes.
Harshad-abundant-pronic Loire.
Hey, Disco Biscuits on CDs.
Indelicate?  No, Strigaskór.
Kaleidoscopic hens
eat citizens.

Regard the Math Olympiad
(see hundred per). A way sub-par
green jacket. Lewis Carroll, rad
unto his death. Ummi Kumar
is not a Beast but holed
dominion’s gold.

Enough. Why should I prate of oil-
to-barrel gallonage, diffuse
Orion Nebula, Fred Hoyle,
the NatWest Tower? Too abstruse.
“How Not to Be Seen”
entertains a queen.

Go then, you made of Størmer stuff
and overlocking CPUs,
lest Hack and honeycomb be tough
and sphenic magic sing the blues.
X-factors byte indeed,
you must concede.

Oppressive, 1973

by Mark Blaeuer

Dead hour. No change in the mercury
hellometer. Sleep ransacked. A red skull,
an inbred apparition. That locale
ground them out ex nihilo. Animate
leaves crackling as if under human weight—
recidivistic prowler shifting to
his haunches for an upward-angle show
past wind chime, holly. She sprang off the bed,
dressed lightning, scoured the gray neighborhood
until she finally became insensate.
The presence—close as fear, conjoined with hate—
stayed. Drone of air conditioners: a lie.

Allegory

by Mark Blaeuer

I grab my first aid kit.
The target house near, I decide
to run there. Soon I’m on the highway,
stuck behind a marathon
of centenarians, most crawling.
I yell, “Hurry up, you old
people!” They reach a place where
they’re supposed to rappel up a cliff,
and this slows them further, dogged
seniors moving two inches
per thousand years, covering
the precipice I have to ascend.
Unlatching my kit, I pull out
the bullwhip. CRACK! “Climb, suckers!
Hurry up, you old people!”
CRACK! “I’m responding to
a medical emergency!” Elders fall.
“Come on, damn it!” CRACK! Finally,
enough of the face clear, I
can elbow past, dropping a few
more. At top I dash to my
destination, family
at the door. “You’re too late,”
they accuse, “He died.” “Well, heck,”
I say, rummaging my kit
to find a baggie. “I was going
to administer this to your father: who
wants a doughnut hole?”

Jeremiad

by Mark Blaeuer

The pessimists are prophets in disguise,
tut-tutting at society’s decay.
The optimists are Pollyanna-wise,
intent on manufacturing surprise:
a novel climate opens every day.
The pessimists are prophets in disguise,
and I’m one, confident that if the skies
are staying up, it doesn’t follow (a)
that optimists are Pollyanna-wise
or (b) that humans won’t earn their demise
in yet another horrifying way.
The pessimists are prophets in disguise,
alright: we stand for reason. I advise
a ton of resignation also. Pray,
you optimists, you Pollyanna-wise,
to Mammon’s oil. His anthracitic eyes
are gimleting your final Chevrolet.

Sundial

by Mark Blaeuer

Across a boulevard that might have been
annexed as rural in 1945,
before its modicum of postwar growth,
our stockyard empties. Prodded up the ramp,
beef cattle scent long-buried fear crept out
of each grave. Gnomon to a radial
arrangement of white marble (upright style),
one soldier lifts his bronze arm—patina
for olive drab—as if to question. Vein-
blue sky pumps to artery-red.
Cicadas keen in oaks. Half moon hangs pallid,
muscle on a hook, a piece of earth.

Proof

by Mark Blaeuer

Exhausted every
night, 70 mph
to and from a lousy job
every day,
year after year,

he prays for death.

Next day
his car battery dies.