Day 152 | On Distinction by A. F. Moritz

On Distinction
A. F. Moritz

We won’t pretend we’re not hungry for distinction

but what can ever distinguish us enough?

This country, this language won’t last long, the race

will die, later the cockroach, earth itself,

and last this beer bottle: silicon fused by man,

almost indestructible, like a soul:

it will go spinning ever farther from the nearest thing

until space, continually deepening, drowns in itself.

Yet we keep a hungry eye on old schoolmates

and everyone born in the year of our own birth,

and spend the nights in ranting over them,

their money, fashionable companions, pliant critics.

To live just a little longer than they do:

that would be triumph. Hence exercise and diets,

and the squabble over who will write the history

of this paradise of demons casting each other out.

Day 116 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch

Day 92 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch

Day 99 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch

Day 92 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch.

Day 107 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch

Day 92 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch.

Day 139 | Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

Jabberwocky
Lewis Carroll

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

      The frumious Bandersnatch!”

 

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

      Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

      And stood awhile in thought.

 

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

      And burbled as it came!

 

One, two! One, two! And through and through

      The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

      He went galumphing back.

 

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      He chortled in his joy.

 

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

      And the mome raths outgrabe.

Day 64 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch

Day 92 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch.

Day 92 | Fast Break by Edward Hirsch

Fast Break
Edward Hirsch

In memory of Dennis Turner, 1946-1984

A hook shot kisses the rim and
hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop,

and for once our gangly starting center
boxes out his man and times his jump

perfectly, gathering the orange leather
from the air like a cherished possession

and spinning around to throw a strike
to the outlet who is already shoveling

an underhand pass toward the other guard
scissoring past a flat-footed defender

who looks stunned and nailed to the floor
in the wrong direction, trying to catch sight

of a high, gliding dribble and a man
letting the play develop in front of him

in slow motion, almost exactly
like a coach’s drawing on the blackboard,

both forwards racing down the court
the way that forwards should, fanning out

and filling the lanes in tandem, moving
together as brothers passing the ball

between them without a dribble, without
a single bounce hitting the hardwood

until the guard finally lunges out
and commits to the wrong man

while the power-forward explodes past them
in a fury, taking the ball into the air

by himself now and laying it gently
against the glass for a lay-up,

but losing his balance in the process,
inexplicably falling, hitting the floor

with a wild, headlong motion
for the game he loved like a country

and swiveling back to see an orange blur
floating perfectly through the net.