Chris O’Carroll

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Toke Me out to the Ball Game

Major League Baseball (MLB) will remove marijuana
from its list of banned substances

Reuters

The outlook was, like, brilliant for the Weedville nine that day.
They vaped some prime sativa. Ergo, ultra-psyched to play.

When Weedville got the munchies, there was never any doubt
That vendors stocking Cracker Jack and peanuts would run out.

They ditched the anthem for a mellow dose of Grateful Dead.
The game was not a contest, but a work of art instead.

The physics of the knuckleball for once made perfect sense,
And home runs grokked the happy math of arcs above the fence.

A runner with a lead off first could slide through hyperspace
To wormhole past the tag and wind up safe at second base.

With Bolshoi Ballet grace the infield turned its double plays,
While journeyman outfielders were reborn as Willie Mays.

The talent was all Golden Glove, Cy Young, and Triple Crown,
So everybody got their tickets punched for Cooperstown.

The mojo of the game enacted cosmic majesty
As baseball truth converged and merged with baseball fantasy.

The players all flew higher than a patriotic eagle
In celebration of the news that cannabis was legal.

Anglophones Abroad

We’re at the museum named for Vincent Van Gogh,
A painter we’re all mispronouncing, we know.

The artist went crazy and cut his ear off—
That’s one thing we’ve heard about Vincent Van Gogh.

The Dutch are a courteous folk who don’t mock
What they hear when we talk about Vincent Van Gogh.

Chris O’Carroll is the author of The Joke’s on Me (White Violet Press, 2019), reviewed here. He has been a Light magazine featured poet, and has published poems in The Great American Wise Ass Poetry AnthologyLove Affairs at the Villa Nelle, and New York City Haiku, among other collections.