-he sings the stuff of life. what do I sing?-

of Jimmy Phealan’s march to the sea.

I hear Jimmy Phealan singing Shakespeare. 

I sing of traversing 
Hi-Low-Jack-and Game at the chain-
linked fence where the right field homers fly.

how does Jimmy Phealan hear me when I sing?

with inventions and nightmares?

through one big eye in the middle of
an inverted pear-shaped head?

Jimmy Phealan thinks I’m bald with long,
skinny fingers that cannot possibly work.

(can’t open a jar of syrupy jelly,––

fingers no good for nothin’)

but I have powers, he might imagine and

maybe I read minds, he might assume
and it’s his mind I’ll read, so Jimmy fear's

and I'm afraid of what I can do with the powers
of the extra terrestrial he's made of me.

in the afternoon of morning I’ll visit others of Jimmy's kind

at Institution 10, ward 17, follow the chalk-white stripe,

straight to the sewer who eats foul balls and sing of eternal
hands heavy with trumps.
now, that's the way in. but this is the way out.