math versus a natural swing

       

i love baseball but my real love

is higher mathematics

competitive and bloodthirsty

where square roots,

squeeze plays and

Fibonacci world series

square off

against cold fusion,

slugging percentage

strike outs

steals and

suicide squeezes

go ahead

do the higher math

smack fungoes to centerfield

stretch a double

into a quadratic equation

theoretical calculus and dead reckoning

savagely intuitive

extremely linear

a highbrow swing game

high cheese, fast twitch peptides

burning the inside corner

faster than the math

of physicists and sabermetricians

it’s complex, it’s simple,

it’s quick but your head

spins like sunshine and space

money balls fly into the gap

left centerfield

weird other worldly equations

hidden in box scores

math versus a natural swing

circles squared

equal and opposite thermodynamics

money times calories

equals effort

and good intentions

gentlemen, start your resumes

grab your throbbing paychecks

sing for your net worth

 

full moon triangle growling



by Jonathan Marcus, way past his bedtime

A few facts by which we may momentarily moor ourselves

even as we throb in the corpuscular maelstrom:

• Distance from the earth to the sun: about 93 million miles, or 8 light minutes.
• From the sun to the former planet Pluto: 4.6 billion  miles, or 9 light  months.
• Radius of the solar system: a few light days, depending on things.
• The Milky Way is 100,00 light years in diameter, contains about 200 billion stars.
• (At this point, the difference between radius and diameter may not matter.)
• Our local group of galaxies: 3 million light years in radius.

On a different portion of the scale . . .

• The human brain contains about 100 billion cells.
• And the human body contains about 100 trillion cells.
• But we have ten times as many microbes in our bodies as we have human cells. 
• Oy.
• But without them we would die. 
• But we're gonna die anyway. 
• Oy.

Mirror Beach



Unusual beach in Hvonsk, Blatvia mirrors itself and emits unusual sounds as well. Not much is known how, why, or who but just know that it does.

O, Turnberry!

Tom Watson just made the cut at the British Open - at age 64, the oldest golfer ever to do so. Five years ago, at age (one moment, hmm, 64 minus 5 is...) 59, he was poised over an 8 foot putt on the 18th and final hole at Turnberry, one of the oldest and most venerated venues of the Open. Make it and he wins. That putt was the culmination of an extraordinary four day run which saw him turn back time to lead a field of world class players fully a generation younger, all vying for one of golf's most treasured trophies. He had won the Claret Jug as a much younger man, but this was a miraculous moment - make the putt, and he becomes the oldest player ever to win this or any other major tournament, by a long shot. This poem was written by Whirled HQ in the aftermath, and is reposted here in honor of his making the cut in 2014. It is best read out loud, in one's best Scottish brogue.


O turnberry ye hardy hunk of tortured scottish turf
the wind and sea and weather pound thy earth
like fists of duffers flailing

O turnberry ye thirsty sponge for tears and blood
blood of fools, blood of kings, blood of bogeyed holes
blood seeped and supple in your dirt

O turnberry your claws sunk deep in the shallows of the outer Firth of Clyde
you've your own moon, turnberry, a half farthing rising in the pounding sea
we call it the Ailsa Craig, fat and edged in the sinking sun

O Turnberry your winds do twist and thrash and overturn
laughing at gravity herself
tossing a dimpled ball on a celtic whim

O merciless Turnberry, ye spiteful course
tom watson slashes through your puzzled links
tom watson aged 59 stands atop turnberry aged eons

O Turnberry summoning gales of inevitability
the odds stacked against goodness and mercy and truth of heart
favoring the brutal sea, the lumpy heaving foam-frothed sea

O Turnberry ye exquisite Scottish poison
poised on the 18th hole, old tom watson needs an 8 foot putt
to win the Claret Jug and eternity, immune to wind and war

O Turnberry! Old Tom Watson!
good god man, it's an eight foot putt to immortality
gird thy loins, stroke true, the cup is in your grasp!

O good god, turnberry, did you rise in green envy?
brook naught that's straight and true?
Turnberry
reserves immortality for
Turnberry

by the boy poets, flailing in ecstatic denial