by Rick Young | Feb 7, 2016 | Poem
An early interception
changed the game’s complexion.
After two substantial kicks,
the spread was back up to six.
Looked as if the football gods
once again had nailed the odds.
But a short-pass-fueled long drive
kept the comeback dream alive,
up until a late-game sack
by a blitzing cornerback
made a last hope necessary,
sixty-seven yard hail Mary.
Interference on the one!
Two ticks left, they called the run.
A billion betters’ knees were weak
as the defense stopped the sneak.
Both teams’ players shed some tears.
Best damned game in fifty years.
by Rick Young | Feb 6, 2016 | Poem
Satchmo, Miles, ‘Trane,
Pharoah, Diz,
tell you what a player is.
Sacramental blue high notes,
wails and honks and sailing boats.
Silence, violence, bleep to bawl,
horn of plenty says it all.
Horn of plenty, Blue Note, Verve,
hits a raw religious nerve.
Every time that these cats blow
God is putting on a show.
Horn of plenty, hear that sound,
six feet off or under ground.
by Rick Young | Feb 5, 2016 | Poem
Corporal Geometry
informed Private Equation,
"W’ell have to take Right Angle Hill
if we’re to save this nation."
But Major Addition
said there was one condition.
It seemed Sergeant Subtraction
had seen too much combat action.
So Colonel Long Division
made a tactical decision.
Send Captain Algebra
up the hill as last hurrah.
"His men aren’t averse to dying,
and they’re always multiplying."
General Mathematics states,
"He wins who better calculates."
by Rick Young | Feb 4, 2016 | Poem
I woke up rooted to the ground,
within sight of no industry.
A farmer with a shovel came
across the field and stared at me,
said, "If you grow and blossom,
that’s the only way you will get free."
And so I pledged my earthbound life
to vegetable reality.
by Rick Young | Feb 3, 2016 | Poem
There is no proper substitute
for a good yodel parade.
Mountain men and cowboys
come from every glen and glade.
They flock into the town of choice
to try to win some prizes,
with their yodel-a-hee voice
in bodies of all sizes.
You’ll get some folks from Switzerland
and several from Peru.
And each is glad to show you
what their crackling voice will do.
The decibels raised by their yells
send livestock on the run.
Y’all come down to Comstock,
’cause this weekend starts the fun.
by Rick Young | Feb 2, 2016 | Poem
The groundhog sees his shadow and we’re all for six weeks doomed.
Whose idea was it to have this poor beast exhumed?
There must be other rodents on whom we could pin our luck,
something not quite so skittish as the underground woodchuck.
Perhaps we’d be much better off in dragging from its hole
an animal unfazed by sun, most probably a mole.
Or maybe shadows aren’t the things that make him want to hide.
It could be all those guys in top hats dragging him outside.
The whistle pig has this big gig that helps decide our fate.
It would be great if on this date we just let him sleep late.
