Trust Fall into the Blue Crowd

Trust Fall into the Blue Crowd

By Tim Kahl

The man climbs the Bowman statue to hang
a W flag on it but fails. The crowd cheers him on,
but the steed is too tall. They’re egging
him on to go, go, go. So the man turns
his back on them, then lets gravity take over
as he begins to fall down, down, down
into the good will of the moment and
the good will of the years that have wandered off,
full of the agony of futility, the accumulated
errors and missed opportunities.
The blue crowd lines five miles of
Lake Shore Drive to watch the double
decker buses rolling down past the ghosts
of Santo, Sauer, Banks, Hickman, Pappas,
Hubbs and all the others who wore the uniform
or wore just a t-shirt or a jersey as
a salute, whose bodies weren’t so resolute
as the passion passed down to the next of kin.
It’s the kind of passion that drives someone
to climb a light pole and swing back and forth
on the end, to take the plunge off a bridge
into the Chicago River on a November morning
after the plumbers union has dyed it blue.
It keeps a person standing on the corner of
Congress and Wabash, one of five million
in the city, hoping to catch a glimpse.
It’s the greatest mass of humanity ever
assembled on the continent and the voice
on the PA blares: Hey, crowd, you waiting
for your Cubbies to come? The expectation is
for some kind of messianic vision and
edifying orgasm all rolled into one.
This is the moment that everyone has
waited for, more than a hundred years.
It is good. It is pure, but what more
is there? The spiritual goal has been achieved.
The path around the bases is complete.
What is the point of still following if . . .
the mounted police lead the way
to the mic at Grant Park where the owners
congratulate the coaches and the coaches
congratulate the players and the players
thank the fans who brought their holy water,
a rosary, and a bright green lucky baseball

Tim Kahl is the author of five books of poems, most recently Omnishambles (Bald Trickster, 2019) and California Sijo (Bald Trickster, 2022). He is also an editor of Clade Song. He builds flutes, plays them and plays guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos as well. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes. For more, you can visit his website or SoundCloud.

Elliot Lin is a college student who spends their free time musing about sports and how they shape or reflect identity. You can find their other baseball-related illustrations here, or on Twitter @hxvphaestion and Tumblr.

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