Liz’s Weekly Poetry Series: Football + Physics = Fysics

January 25, 2013 in Montana

by lizard

I’ve been working on a poem this week that I think is finally finished, so I’m going to share it here to kick off this football-less weekend. When I become a famous American poet, I could see this poem being good fodder for anthologies (obviously poets don’t need to be published to have big egos).

If Missoula had consistent poetry readings, this is the kind of poem I would love to read in front of an audience. If I wasn’t so busy with work and kids, I would get a monthly reading going myself. I heard awhile back that Bernice’s Bakery has a monthly reading, but I’ve never gone to one, so I don’t know if it’s still happening. If any B-bird readers know more, please let me know in the comments.

Anyway, the poem. Have a great weekend!

*

FYSICS

take two violent fun balls
collide to find Higgs Boson
to see the field everywhere—
don’t be sad, big meat sacks
the field is really awesome
beyond the wide receivers
beyond the chalk-white hashmarks
the hundred yards of turf
and pulsing beat of crowd
loud for meat’s collision
for crustaceans under shell
like oysters slurped in skybox?
the field beyond will hold you
forget the violent fun balls
the zebra men, their whistles
(and once disputed contracts)
forget the suits in skybox
and the public heart they hate
(unless, of course, it pays them)
forget their coliseums, either
open air or dome because
the node from sky looks bud enough
to bloom—so open to the field
they work our eyes out to conceal
their bet is you’ll accept untrue limit
open to the wave the lines of un-
dulation that flap and sway
as paid feet stomp and dig
(head in shell cracking into hell)
crowd erupts; ripples in the field—
node implodes; a necessary wind—
the field always the field always
everywhere at once, and the meat
just a blinking of the eye

—William Skink

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