In the stands, down 35-3 with two minutes left in the fourth,
Fred Carson picks at the sticky, white remnants of a Coke bottle's label.
He leans over to me,
"Do you mind if I talk to you again?"
I don't, and haven't since kickoff.

"You know, I played running back on this same field."

"Oh yeah?" I say, allowing the story to commence.

"Started all four years. Rushed 1,000 yards as a freshman."

"Wow."

"It took five guys to bring me down by my senior year."

"That's insane."

"I probably still hold the record for most rush yards,
but I doubt they keep up with things like that."

He takes a sip from his drink. It's half empty.
His hair -- greasy, most likely on its third unwashed day --
parts to the left and clings to his skull.
He's wearing a long sleeve, plaid dress shirt.
The shirt is buttoned to the top.

"Hell, that was back in 1968," slows, "I graduated in 19-68. Jesus."

Fred retired from the post office six years back.
He claims he's never missed a game of Blue Jay football since 1970.
The high school band starts playing in the section next to us --
a misshapen cover of "Louie, Louie".
Fred raises his voice,

"You know, I've been to every football game since 1970."

"Yeah, you mentioned that last week."

"I apologize. Yeah, if it wasn't for that first year of college.
I got a scholarship to play ball at Florida State.
Couldn't be there and here at the same time, you know? Kinda hard."

He runs his big-knuckled right hand along his khaki'd thigh, checking his pocket.
He checks the left thigh -- nothing.
Reaches into his shirt pocket and reveals a lighter.
Then a soft pack of Marlboro Lights emerge.

"You know, I ran the fifty in less than five seconds."

To the dismay of cheerleader moms sitting behind us,
he lights the cigarette.
He stares at the Bic lighter with some NASCAR driver -- number 88 --
I don't recognize.
The cutout of the NASCAR driver's scraggly face
sits atop a navy blue and spiraling purple backdrop.
He starts to scratch at the label on the lighter.
A screech from a clarinet rises above the rest of the band,
Fred grimaces, takes a drag, continues,

"The coach at Florida State said I was the fastest boy he'd ever seen.
He said I was going to go pro. Sure thing, he said. I rushed for nearly
300 yards in the first game my freshman year. After the game,
the coach was like, see boy, I told you. You are going to tear it up
this season."

The NASCAR decal comes completely off. Under that purple and blue label,
Fred uncovers a white lighter.

"Would you look at that. I wouldn't have bought the **** thing if
I knew it was a white lighter. That's bad luck, you know. Hendrix and
that--uh--Janis Joplin lady both died with a white lighter in their hand.
Bad luck. A white lighter is bad luck."

"What happened at Florida State?" I ask.

"Well, we were playing Notre Dame during the second game that season.
Down by five with three seconds left on the clock.
We were on our own thirty, and the coach of Florida State was like,
run the hail mary play. But in the huddle, I look the quarterback
square in the eyes, and I say to him, captain -- he was team captain --
I say, captain, I'm hungry for that ball. He knew I could do it.
He took the snap, the receivers rushed down field, and I bolted toward
that line of scrimmage, took the handoff and I was gone, baby."

The crowd begins to cheer as the Blue Jay quarterback throws a long pass
to a wide open receiver. Fred freezes mid-story.
The cheer blurs into a silence, as each person in the bleachers
watches the ball ascend.

For the first time all night, the band lowers their instruments from their lips.
Just a ball floating.
The buzz from the stadium lights becomes audible.
One person gasps.
Then like dominoes the stadium follows suit.

The high arc of the ball betrays the distance,
and the pigskin plummets sharply.

"Interception!" the announcer cries through the speakers.

"That's a **** shame. I thought he was going to have it.
What were we talking about?" Fred asks as he drops his
finished cigarette into the nearly empty, naked Coke bottle.

"You were talking about Florida State. You were down five and--"

"That's right. So, I break up the middle. I dust that noseguard.
I stiff arm a linebacker. I looked like a Heisman trophy in motion.
I travel 69-yards down the field. I'm slowing down at the endzone,
thinking nobody is around, and sure enough -- plow -- the cornerback
dives right into my leg. I broke all kinds of bones and tore all kinds
of muscles. The doctor told me, he'd never seen anything like it."

The band plays the fight song as the clock winds down and the Blue Jays lose.
I try to disappear in the sea of blue and silver exiting t-shirts,
but Fred slows me down,

"It sure was good talking to you. I'll have to tell you more about Florida State
next week. Be sure to sit by me."

"I will," I say as the band director, Mr. Morton, steps in front of me.

"Hey, Fred," Mr. Morton says. He looks at me, then back to Fred.
He's trying to decide whether or not I'm of relation.
"Son, I went to Seminole State Junior College with Fred here
when we got out of high school."

"Really? Did you guys play football together?" I ask with innocent inquisitiveness.

"No, we weren't really into that. Though, we were at all the games.
We were in band together. Until Fred's wild streak got the best of him,"
Mr. Morton laughs, "am I right, Fred?"



The fight song came to a close.
With a lowered head, Fred walked into the silver, blue crowd
with a plaid dress shirt buttoned to the top.

He was known as the local Mycophagist
In the dales, the woods and the hills,
What happened was sad, for he wasn’t so bad
Just a tad underdone, Toby Gills,
They say that the cord was around his neck,
He was born with a carroty mop,
And a pale white head, he was almost dead
When the doctor had called out ‘Stop!’

They cut the cord and they let him breathe,
The damage was already done,
The blood had been stopped to his carroty top
So they said that he’d always be dumb.
But he found a niche where the fungi creeps
And went out collecting the spore,
In a year or two he knew more than you
And the college Professor next door.

He studied his mushrooms with loving intent,
He knew about hen of the woods,
He knew about bracket and shaggy manes, magic
And paddy straw, they were the goods;
He fostered his lobster and hedgehog and oyster
And coral fungi and stinkhorns,
But didn’t discern between fly agarics
And toadstools that grew in the lawn.

He grew his spore in a deep, dark cellar
And sold to the folk who came by,
And never would judge between Widow Weller
And the ordinary witches of Rye,
He’d sell death caps, and pigskin puffballs
Not thinking to question them why,
Or who would be eating his laughing Jim’s
And whether they knew they would die.

The air was thick and the air was damp
And he fell in the dark one day,
Scattering toadstools into the air
And their spores had floated away,
He breathed the spores right into his lungs
For he hadn’t been wearing a mask,
But ****** them in right over his tongue
And they came to his lungs, at last.

I happened to see him out in the street
He was finding it hard to breathe,
He could only take a couple of steps
Then sit on the kerb, to heave,
I tried to help but he waved me away
And his eyes were yellow and cruel,
Then I saw what he’d thrown up on the kerb
Some yellow and red toadstools.

The man was a walking toadstool spore
They were popping up out of his hair,
Pushing their way though his carroty top
In a bid to get to the air,
And his skin was blotched like a puffball, he
Looked up at me, and he cried,
As a giant toadstool grew from his throat
And he lay on his side, and died.

David Lewis Paget

Tossing the pigskin
Burrowing and displaying the Ostrich effect
All applause for the chairman of the board of trustees
And all the spiddle on his back up shirt

Mortify them
An incomplete pass
Rally the troops
For unfinished business

Shift gears
Reread the post script

"P.S.  The unzipped flies of store owners trying to replicate the success of their fathers. Piddle about, play with implements of torture, instruments of destruction. Wander in the wilderness, grunt and sigh as your civilized brain rattles. Make way for Plan B, and fill out the forms in triplicate. Fumbling at the controls, emergency landing. The gear shift and crankshaft have given out. Listen to the titillating chatter of the disappointed passengers who all longed for the window seat.

Always your's
Edmund Balthazar "

Take two
I could slap you

Plunge, colder+deeper, illuminosity, shame, boats,
fear, family, disappointment, roots, train,*

Lights,
Camera,
Action:

When you told me, “no”
you called me “******”
and you became the Quarterback
you used to be.

You refused to watch
my musicals because football
“What real men do, boy”
ran in your blood.

So, I swore never to forgive
the blood that named me
your son because you threw
a pass and I didn’t have hands.

Winter was cold and the stage
was warm, unlike pigskin goose bumps
or Gatorade that you tried
to force onto my hands.

Then you finally came
to watch me sing
in Les Miserables and
you wept, warm tears.

“Proud of you, son”
you cried, and we wept
and my cold heart thawed
because of bloods warmth.

**Lights
Camera
Scene.

Holy Giving in the action of a toss
Bulls EYE!!
See the center of Divine Intention??
Pure Harmony in Flight
Each thought out..
Love in Gratitude

Given for the Holy Joy of it!!
This Game is ONE!!!!      

Played on the Field beyond Right and Wrong,
There is only Grace..
Love's Victory...Given by the Hero's of her  own making

Love, Beauty, Joy, Harmony..
All my names...!
And what of the refs.. Who are they?

Well in Heaven , they are the Gifts...
And on earth, possibly a withholding
Go within, and Bless all the forgiveness that has already been given
Without any effort
And YOU SHALL SEE THE PLEASURE OF YOUR OWN FRUIT
Bingo!!!

And So It Is.

In the schisms of light changes,
Between the honking horns of crying babies
And angry mothers,
The cars hunched in anticipation
Like the smoker’s tongue rolling
Against the teeth for that nicotine speed.
A starry-eyed woman blinked with no destination
In her husband’s Bentley.
The rumbling is the crunching grind of helmets
In a pigskin scrimmage.
I can barely stand the
            Stop-Go
            Inch-Worming
Of brake-lights.
Car’s trembling is the twitching squirrel
Panic-caught in a lightsocket.
Even if the slim traffic-conductor
That burns like plastic on the fire
Yields us through like a coaxing father,
Hollow eyes don’t yield the lethargic feet.
Remnants of the second millenium’s gas-scorn,
Our can-do attitudes goad our chariots to
            Hack
And
            Spit
Dust-Sludge in gridlocked gossip.

The thought hurts so bad
That the game has turned sad
To take away a voice
And replace it with silence
Who let that go
Who let me know
When freedoms are allowed
Only conditional
The insane overseer controls his puppets
And to know that I use to have strings
Tossed twisted pulled and pushed
My career was a slave dream
Filled with a combine built like a auction
A contract like the slaves just with more change involved
Whips are the fines, jails, and blacklist
That you eagerly get assigned
Dare you speak without a sheet
Or with your mind
I kneel for injustice
I kneeled to be free
I kneeled to show my struggle
But to you a unthankful **** is all you see
I raise my hand for help but you rather me melt then disturb your selfish wealth
You must see the whole frame I love starry night but van goh was insane
To only see the vision and fall halfway thru
Football is tied to Jim Crow in the expression view
Owners spread bigotry,and lie on the truth
Expand dollars to shrink everything we do
So since we can’t say no to cops killing,
Wrongful jail dates or the rigid two step back and one half step forward life
I won’t watch the nfl
I won’t partake in a game
I wouldn’t even tag they twitter name
So this is my hurtful goodbye
To something that was so high
I wish you could see it with my eye

I was there when you were
Washing the tides of moon dust
in your paint speckled pants
Hitting the high beams of the football structure.
I was there in that autumn breeze
while you tossed everything you knew
into the air
Pigskin soaring over metal framework
The empty field
in some city outskirts
I watched on by the red berries,
the holly tree,
my scarf waiting around my neck for some hands to tug it,
make me drop my school books at my sides
I fell  rapidly,
you intrigued me.
I stayed to watch you
Use all your might
Watch how you grasped the world
And  watched how you threw yourself
and every speckle that danced within your heart and any mark
upon your white canvas into the millions of space particles before you.
Putting your soul into that little oval ball
By yourself
A fetch game
With no dog to retrieve the loose end
But you
Holding the air.

A new adonias we weep for
A miiddle aged life tooken
From us by a disturbed
Hairy trigger
We flood the rows
And watch anger
Linger behind stained glass
But forgivenesses message
Dwells in the holy  mans heart
All the worlds unsharpened charcoal
Cant sketch the scene on his deck
When the bullet missed the dart board
And landed inside his precious
Life breathing chest
In here we are safe
In here a wishing well of endless
Purified water from our sadness
Cant ressurect our friend frank rossiter
Few fathers experience lost sons
Few mothers watch their sons
Explain to strangers why adonias
Cant be here anymore
To watch the running
Pigskin at the state foot ball game

It happened in Physics,
reading a Library art book under the desk,
(the lesson was Archimedes in the bath)
I turned a page and fell
for an older man, and anonymous at that,
hardly ideal –
he was four hundred and forty-five,
I was fourteen.
‘Eureka!’ streaked each thought
(I prayed no-one would hear)
and Paradise all term
was page 179
(I prayed no-one would guess).
Of course
my fingers, sticky with toffee and bliss,
failed to entice him from his century;
his cool grey stare
fastened me firmly in mine.
I got six overdues,
suspension of borrowing rights
and a D in Physics.
But had by heart what Archimedes proves.
Ten years later I married:
a European with cool grey eyes,
a moustache,
pigskin gloves.

Our Left Coast sighs in a stupor of red
from evergreen coasts to the casting bed.
Hollywood’s big leagues deal their fatal blow;
vapid perspectives from stars in the know.
Glamour holds court: socialite solutions
when celebrities talk revolutions.
But red alone would bring our nation harm
cut loose from white and blue—and should alarm
the audience, who pay to see their plays
while questioning their wanton West-coast ways:
Designer-reds, a stain upon our land
where red with white and blue ought take a stand.
Such fluff from the stage set who roll in dough
is Hollyweird yeast—rising now to show
beautiful and swelling irrelevance
unaware of its insignificance:
Hypocrite pretenders all paid to act
in films where decent values are attacked.

Let us turn then from Thespis‘ leering smile
to lace up cleats and run the gridiron mile
where other plays get tossed in endless zones
as commentators rave in heightened tones
while fools raise fists—then take the well-payed knee,
their pigskin antics sold to you and me.
****** a fat mike before their muscled face.
Note well the dull reaction, low as base.
These tattooed thugs make vain attempt, through speech
multitudes of more thuggish fans to reach.
The sad attempt to use their words in vain
lacks clear interpretation. Yall nome sain ?
The musclebound elect, who toss a ball
(as if their silly game was all in all)
should stick to sports; decline to state their views
lest fans their spectacle no longer choose.
Thus stars of field and screen steal every show,
and cause our dying culture worlds of woe.

The stories never end
They're all about him
He's never at a loss, always a win

Anything you mention, his done or been
Even the best at sports, his thrown that old pigskin
He's stories always told with that lopsided stupid grin

You can't help but listen, he's as loud as can be
He's as loud as the banshee
That lives down by the sea

He'll tell his stories in different versions of threes
I'd say he trying to confuse me
But he's to stupid for that, you'll have to agree

He's never worked a day in his life, but he'll talk shop
I want to take him to my old playground, in the tallest treetop
Or out in the middle of the grown corn crop

He talks nonstop
Till you want to drop
Makes you want to give his throat a karate chop

He thinks he keeps you on the edge of your seat
But you really can't wait to jump to your feet
The most amazing man you'll never want to meet

Every kid had the plans for grandeur
They wanted to sing in a band
Or to walk across a cat walk
To run on a field, talk the big talk
Feel the pigskin leave their hand

They wanted to save the people from the fire
Face the flames head on, be a hero
Die a noble death, be a noble guy
Or girl. Feel the world at their tips,
Watching the smoke rise up higher, higher

It's all about the push and pull,
The invisible force that pushes and pulls us
To be greater, to be the best
It’s a fool’s dream you'll learn,
But until then all you can do is just burn

“There will come a time,” I say
“When all you had hoped to be
will simply be no more.“
Every truth empty,
Like the last sip of bourbon warming your tongue

So taste the sorrow, lick the sin
Who dropped us in this corrupt world?
Who taught us the hate to which we cleave?
Blind leading the blind into a bottomless pit,
A dark world that’s no longer lit

All your hopes? They’re worth nothing
Your dreams slip away like the sanity you pretend to have.
Never enough of it. But what’s enough?
This addictive sadness seems to buy you time,
In the end it’s the same. We all die.

crunched up wrap in the refuse can
smells of late autumn bird and cranberry cuts
brown sugar  & pumpkin meshed with almond wicks burning
in the far off distance lay the brazen air- crisp!
and on the grid iron fields of pigskin combat, men will be measured today

Today I hold reverence

Solomon thought he was doing well
His assets just grew and grew,
He had no moral imperative
While ripping off me and you,
He’d made a fortune in stocks and shares
And a little insider trading,
Had married, divorced, with a bit to spare
For his extra-marital mating.

He wasn’t exactly a murderer
Though he’d peddled horse and hash,
If someone died he would say they lied,
He needed the extra cash.
He was at his prime and was feeling fine
At the age of forty-two,
When an evil bloke with a scythe and cloak
Said, ‘I’ve been looking for you!’

The sudden shock was a heart attack
The pain caught him by surprise,
He thought he might buy him off, but saw
The implacable, staring eyes.
The guy said, ‘I’m just the messenger,
You’re going away, it’s sad!
You’ll have to leave it behind, you know
But you can’t complain, you’re bad!’

He found himself on an open road
That was either up, or down,
He thought, with the wisdom of Solomon
He'd try the high end of town,
But a clerk with wings at a Pearly Gate
Said, ‘First you must come by me,’
Pulled out a plate that was headed ‘Fate!’
‘I have to check your CV!’

He read, and mumbled and held him there,
And whispered under his breath,
‘This can’t be right, you shouldn’t be here,
You suffered an early death!
You haven’t had time to mend your ways
But the rules are more than clear,
You’ve not enough points on the ‘Goody’ side
So you won’t be welcome here!’

He pointed to way, way down on the road
Where there shimmered a reddish glow,
‘They might be more than amenable
To letting you in, you know.’
So Solomon turned, his heart in his throat
And he made the long trek down,
To a surly goat in a pigskin coat
Who greeted him with a frown.

He tried to enter but, ‘Not so fast!’
The goat had stood in his way,
‘I have to check your CV you know,
Before you get in today.’
He read and mumbled and held him there
And whispered under his breath,
‘There’s not enough evil here to spare
With you guys from a premature death.’

‘It’s sad,’ he said, ‘but you can’t come in,’
He said in a voice so gruff,
‘You’re bad, I see, but your history?
You’re simply not bad enough!
I have to be able to justify
That you’ve earned more than you can handle,
It’s a serious thing, for eternity,
To make you a Roman Candle.’

So Solomon found himself out in the cold
On a long and deserted highway,
With all of the others rejected there
Who’d said they would do things ‘My way!’
If only they’d thought before they died
What they’d need for a clear admission,
The goat would have welcomed them all inside
As a lawyer, or politician!

David Lewis Paget

My table never empty
The clothes stayed fresh
You always provided plenty
And yet your hand met her flesh
I learned my love of contact from you
The passion with pigskin
My childhood was in your queue
But you never put the work in
My higher learning is your credit
My IQ is a gift
I only wish I could edit
How quick ***** made you shift
I grew big and strong
Which mirrors your design
I feel like a pig with a ****
A ending to your punchline
You fooled me for years
Reflected a false light
The man who appears
To be my biggest copyright

as snow turns into
a puddle and dissolves
I wouldn't fuddle my head
with alcohol. Paint myself up

as a doll. Spread my legs
as Eagle wings! Pulled as
a puppet on strings. I'm a snowball
that's grown from men that buttered
me up as a scone, greasing their fingers

and licking my bones. I once was
a river. Now I've a river of men that skate
on ice. Some fallen in. That's the vice of
wearing pigskin!

Poetry
I stepped in from the outside.
Glad to be back.
From the place where I could not touch the waters.
The waters yelled I'll tag you first.
So now I'm IT.
But when I was ready to run after
They decided to play hide and seek.
Wrong game waters, wrong game.
The skyline was not picture-perfect
Where the sun refused to start shining.
And then came out.
But I am the one who is to seek.......
Sun I don't think you know how to play this game.
Because this is not how this game works.
This is not how any game works.

I made my bed outside
It was a water bed.
And I think there is a hole in it.
That wasn't there when I took it outside.
I am sinking, I am falling
I am melting.
Then a voice said You are not melting, stop being dramatic
Stand up.
But I cannot lie in it.
Because there were ants.
Or rather, Ain’ts
From Aunts
These aunts saying Ain’t you supposed to be married  by now.
I sigh
Deeply.
Kids walk by me.
And forget to walk by.
No don't leave your food there you will attract the ants and the aunts with their aint's.
I just came outside to eat.
Show me the way to fulfillment.

But I saw that there were lines.
Long lines.
Short Lines.
I could not see the end of the long or short line.
All of these  line are  in the way
Of where I wanted to be.
Lines that were not moving.
So I sigh
Again
And put a blanket down.
I miss my water bed.
One of those people in those lines came by.
Wow.
And said, Do you need anything?
I may not have the most sustenance
But we can play catch.
I looked at her
And she was indeed a catch.
Oops, I said that out loud.
With the covering of swine silly, she laughed.
I can travel through this pigskin to you on the other side.
This time I made sure to keep that thought in my head.
Good thing she cannot hear how fast I said that.
I spoke so fast internally the thought almost became speech.
Such thoughts when nurtured become our truth.

So we played catch until sundown.
We should have called it drop.
Because she caught the football on her end.
And I dropped the football on mine.
I could not even claim that the sun was in my eyes.
But I did say the sun is in my hands.
I even tried a one handed catch
And the other hand said Stick to two-handed dropping.
My brethren hand said this monstrosity hurts his fingers.
With every throw I did, she had to come closer.
Hey they call it catch, not pass.
My arms were almost reaching her
With every back and forth
We even threw once in a while.
Until we hugged at the end of catch.
In the darkness I came home.
Poetry.
I could get my sustenance now that I’m here.
Never mind.
I received all I needed from the outside.