Poem Bale Two Regarding Horses Fast and Slow

1

  Title Page & Licensing Notes

  Acknowledgements

  Contents 2

  Poem Bale Two Regarding Horses Fast and Show

  By Thomas M. McDade

  Copyright 2013 Thomas M. McDade

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to the following publications that have published many of these poems:

  Abbey, Amaranthine Muse, Bean Feast, Bender, Bibliophilos, Brobdingnagian Times, Chance Magazine, Clark Street Review, Lake Effect, Lucky Star, Mushroom Dreams, Nerve Cowboy, Pawtucket Times, Pitchfork, Poet's Fantasy, Santa Clara Review, Slugfest, LTD, Sunken Lines

  Contents

  1) First Daily Double Memento

  2) Mr. Whimsy

  3) Knowing How To Die

  4) Valley Café

  5) Shelter Guy At OTB

  6) Babe At The Belmont

  7) Like A Charm

  8) Landonoor

  9) Sounds Of Wilting

  10) Iceland

  11) Portraits

  12) The Clocker

  13) Hustler Ballet

  14) Music, Narragansett Park

  15) Insurance

  16) Position

  17) Laurel Charger

  18) Hot Tips

  19) Royalty

  20) Robinson Crusoe

  21) Candles

  22) Duke’s Gigs

  23) Heroism

  24) The Day Elvis Died

  25) Clean Living

  26) Rounding Up

  27) Eight Ball

  28) Sowing

  29) Unfit

  30) Exactas

  31) Courtesy

  32) Restraint

  First Daily Double Memento

  Daily Racing Form in my lap as crucial

  as the Constitution itself I figured

  and calculated speed

  ratings and variants, averaged,

  this that, what if and so what,

  scrutinized workouts for hints

  and hidden clues, pondered bloodlines

  as if a Latter Day Saint.

  The only racetracks I’d known

  were my hometown Narragansett

  Park and Lincoln Downs,

  the Big A on liberty

  off the USS Mullinnix

  and the Charles Town oval on

  an earlier shore duty jaunt.

  This time I was on the wagon

  with a pocketful of cash riding

  a Baltimore bus to Bowie

  that February Saturday in nineteen-

  sixty-five and it was more exciting

  than walking or running

  and to the home fences,

  armed with a pittance.

  On the New York subway trip

  I was foggy-brained celebrating

  the age eighteen New York

  drinking law; hitchhiking my way

  to West Virginia paled too

  as I’d passed for lush legal.

  My historic daily double

  coupled Footprint with Brown

  Bulldog whose photo graced

  the first Sunday Sun sports page.

  I added a longshot winner

  named Roman Battleship.

  Coincidentally, bulldog-faced FBI Chief

  Hoover presented the featured eighth race

  trophy but to Tilmar’s people instead

  of Exclusive Nashua’s.

  (My dead last 6-1 choice!)

  I often recall that day, temperate

  and lucky, over 21,000 fans strong

  and how for a change my spent Daily

  Racing Form scrolled in my lap

  remained as vital as the Declaration

  of Independence that bus ride

  back to Baltimore and onward.

  Top of Page

  Mr. Whimsy

  It was easier on emotions

  with John in the urn

  and not in the coffin.

  The preacher said the eulogy

  might ring false

  since a photo was all

  he had to rely on.

  I peeked at the few faces

  around me, AIDS doesn’t fill

  pews like car wrecks or cancer.

  Some mourners, folks always

  whispered would never be much

  weren’t made of the stuff

  that makes liars.

  A woman who’d OD’d

  and survived 51 times:

  an Ocean State record,

  didn’t look any worse

  for the trying.

  I recalled splitting a horse bet

  with John at Narragansett

  when we were kids

  on Mr. Whimsy, my first winner.

  A newspaper story dawned on me

  about sons scattering

  their father’s ashes

  across the finish line at Aqueduct.

  I imagined John’s remains going that route –

  what the wind missed horseshoe stomped

  and framed for luck.

  After the preacher noted things

  and their seasons, a few of us lingered

  by the chapel steps as if between

  races at Narragansett,

  when we were young and intent

  on perfecting expressions and gestures

  to indicate neither good luck nor bad –

  as mourners we weren’t as sure how to act.

  Top of Page

  Knowing How To Die

  Preakness Saturday I visit

  the bookie dying

  too young.

  Lung cancer the cause;

  he’s refusing treatments.

  Just want to say so

  long and I regret

  the extra sadness

  of a bookmaker laid up

  on Second Jewel day.

  Sitting against a pillow

  in bed intently

  watching a Charles

  Bronson movie

  he looks healthy to me.

  Holding a wait a minute

  finger, he focuses

  like a judge

  at a famous film festival.

  I ask if he wants me to

  bet the big race for him.

  He says no and we concentrate

  on the flick which is exciting.

  Last thing he says before

  shaking hands goodbye

  is that just the other day

  Bronson lost his wife

  to cancer.

  The way he says that

  last word carries

  the same tone

  as I remember hearing

  when he’d named a horse

  leading by ten lengths

  pulled up at the eighth pole

  that he’d held a wealth

  of win bets on.

  Top of Page

  Valley Café

  The trumpeter who calls horses to Post

  at Narragansett earns more backing

  buxom women dancing off clothes

  and sopranos belting out tunes

  to warm up the crowds.

  When a songbird is so good that no one bangs

  bottles on tables or shouts

  “Bring on the stripper,” he feels

  like a Broadway musician.

  Enter the Project kids who used to skip

  school for the track and he’s back

  at the races.

  Nine times a day they cheered him

  as if Satchmo.

  No fences to scale or cops to dodge here:

  show your leer and you’re legal

  at the Valley Café.

  When these lo
yal fans shuffle in

  like new owners, it doesn’t matter

  if a sweet bird he loves like a daughter is holding

  a note she’s been chasing since birth

  or a stripper is bumping and grinding

  a fresh theory of motion –

  “Satchmo” rises and blares the most exquisite

  “Post Time” riff in the annals of racing:

  Triple Crown events included.

  Counting this gang the best field of colts

  ever born, this trumpeter can’t help

  but wonder why the hell not one

  ever took up the horn –

  got good enough to bless

  or blame him.

  Top of Page

  Shelter Guy At OTB

  The shelter guy

  uses money

  from cashing

  bottles and cans

  to bet every horse

  in the ninth

  at Aqueduct.

  He brags even if

  the winner returns

  less than his outlay.

  But today he’s glum

  even though he’s gained

  four and change.

  Staring at a spot

  on the wall,

  under a blasting

  Yankee TV game

  he looks like

  he’s heard

  the state’s pulling

  the container

  deposit law.

  A commercial backed

  by Roger Miller’s

  “King of the Road”

  halves his blues.

  Smiling, he recalls

  being a hit the same

  year as the song.

  His remembers

  a stylish hat

  that featured

  a green feather

  in its hatband

  instead of a halo

  of tickets

  giving luck

  a bad name.

  Top of Page

  Babe At The Belmont

  Driving Mike DeLeo and Bill Slager

  to the Belmont Stakes,

  I detoured off 287 to the Babe’s grave

  as if hot tips were coded on the bats, balls,

  gloves and trinkets that pilgrims left.

  Being a Sox fan, I was grateful

  for the tiny Boston batting helmet.

  We paid our respects, didn’t linger,

  then inched to the track and a crowd that

  would have filled Fenway twice and a half.

  Bill and Mike stuck with their triple systems.

  I played my usual deuce to win on hunches

  and an occasional exacta until the big race

  when I put five on Lemon Drop Kid

  who I’d been keen on since January.

  He won, paid big, and Mike said, “My God,

  the Babe called everyone, ‘Keed’.”

  Bill didn’t take it as hard, pointed out a gal

  who was a ringer for Linda Darnell.

  Races over, we hung out, basked

  in the accumulating quiet

  An Alabaman on his way to Fenway Park,

  noticed my camera, asked if we needed a photographer.

  After he snapped, he let loose a bit of his life,

  pitched in college but lacked major league smoke.

  His late dad had been a Red Sox fan.

  (Mike told him to look for the owners’ initials

  in Morse Code on the