Sports as Warts

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem 

I ruled out playing sports a while before

I learned that they are bad and I was bad

At them.  Most other boys went out to score

Two-second triumphs and defeats, both sad.

Inside our classroom we had read fist tales

In Attic myths, those stories made of sun

And monster slaughter, how the heart impales

Our lives, the truth.  I ditched the empty fun

On soccer field and football grid, race track

And other sweat-filled fru-fru.  Then one day

I felt the line-drive softball, slamming, crack

My nose and nearly mind, both sporting’s prey.

  I never suffered from such stuff again.

    I prize my thoughts — and pondering, gameless brain.

~ Phillip Whidden