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Best Poems From
BARRY A. LANIER
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105.
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Big Cricket
On the field looking for nine counting eleven
Why I must surely be, in baseball heaven
Running wildly through shaved clover
Counting number of balls over
What have I gotten myself into?
Armed with hickory swords
Hovering like snoot overlords
Taking off in offensive strides
Faces beaming with pride
What have I gotten myself into?
Playing bat and ball on the ground
Why this just doesn't seem sound
Sending enemy balls six to four
Running while pulling up drawers
What have I gotten myself into?
Shouting out 'an over'
Is is time to leave the clover
Pitcher delivers a leg break
Looks to me like a mistake
What have I gotten myself into?
Pass on real quick now to Fall
And please give me baseball
Tomorrow I'll return the ticket
Can't seem to fanthom this cricket
Barry A. Lanier
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106.
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Birds
Walking out my back door, headed to the woods
Two bluebirds serenading in harmonious bliss
Walking into the forest border, a pair of bluejays
Dodging and screeching, thrilled by their dance
Deeper in toward the dense, cypress swamp
A parliament of owls conversing in rhythm
Between bare trees and cypress folds
Approaching a stream, staring breathless
A blue heron, frozen, statuesque in the run
Walking out of the forest back toward home
Crossing the border of a corn field and pasture
Hundreds of crows, cawing in clouds of cacophony
Confusion and misdirection, soon they left
As I was walking slowly back down the lane
In silence, knowing nothing, yet feeling everything
Barry A. Lanier
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107.
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Blind Fisherman
While down at the dock fishing one day
Walked up to the man, kneeling to pray
I heard him praying, for a new friend
One who could teach, him to fish again
Now I teach my blind friend, to cast
True left, right or center, how far from the grass
Between the lily pads and the fallen log
'I am seldom blind when I dream, and
morning is always bright, our bait, the worms
have no guides, they can be taught fear of
light' I cannot find myself at times, my shoes
the sink, tell time, but that is spilled milk
I can tell the difference between a liar and
friend, I can tell when I'm nearing the rope's end
Laughing, he says, 'I still hope the worm will turn'
Pink, flacid, and warm dining on good fortune
Books and woman have a faint legible smell
Divorced from the night and in my own shell
In the overcast I dream, using darkness well
Eventually he could not walk, or fish, he fell in
his own feces. He lay there weeping and died
where he fell. The power of righting all wrong
is now hard for me to sell.
Barry A. Lanier
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108.
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Blues of a Georgia Boy (Lyrics)
Born in ole' humid Georgia
Walking barefoot through the mud
Back in those days picked ole' cotton
Somehow it was in your blood
Raised poor in wretched Georgia
Walking barefoot through mud
Ten long years cropping 'bacca'
Then I left that place for good
Saw my momma chopping cotton
While Dad drank the 'shine' straight
Made my mind up, leaving next morning
Dad napping, hung up in the gate
Jumped a redeye to Memphis
Then on to New York City too
Guessing by now a worldy fella'
But still got them Georgia Blues
Caught a redeye back to Atlanta
Where home I'd stay for good
Now I'm back home choppin' cotton
Walking barefoot through the mud
Barry A. Lanier
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