Right Field

by Willie Welch (1986)
Right Field - Performed by Peter, Paul & Mary (1998)

Saturday summers when I was a kid,
We'd run to the school yard and here's what we did,
We'd pick out the captains and we'd choose up the teams,
It was always a measure of my self esteem.
Cause the fastest, the strongest played shortstop and first,
the last ones they picked were the worst.
I never needed to ask, it was sealed,
I just took up my place in right field.

Playing right field, its easy you know,
You can be awkward, you can be slow,
That's why I'm here in right field,
Just watching the dandelions grow.

Playing right field can be lonely and dull,
Little leagues never have lefties that pull,
I dream of the day, when they hit one my way,
They never did, but still I would pray,
That I'd make a fantastic catch on the run,
And not lose the ball in the sun.
And then I'd awake from this long reverie,
And pray that the ball never came out to me.
Here in ...

[solo break]

Off in the distance, the game's dragging on,
There's strikes on the batter, some runners are on,
I don't know the inning, I've forgotten the score.
The whole team is yelling and I don't know what for,
Suddenly everyone's looking at me,
My mind has been wandering, what could it be?
They point to the sky and I look up above,
And the baseball falls into my glove!

Here in right field, Its important you know,
You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw,
That's why I'm here in right field,
Just watching the dandelions grow.

Chickpea to Cook

By Rumi
(translated by Coleman Barks) This is not the complete poem, some verses were edited and taken out.

A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it's being boiled.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

The cook knocks him down with the spoon.

"Don't you try to jump out.
You think I'm torturing you.
I'm giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.

"Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this."

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
"Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can't do this by myself.

The cook says,
"I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time,
and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.

"My animal soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices,
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
and became your teacher."

The Guest House

Poetry by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy,
a depression,
a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.


Welcome and entertain them all!


Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought,
the shame,
the malice,

meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

From Harold and Kumar - Root 3

I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed

"Bixby Canyon Bridge"

Song By: Death Cab for Cutie

I descended a dusty gravel ridge
Beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge
Until I eventually arrived
At the place where your soul had died.

Barefoot in the shallow creek,
I grabbed some stones from underneath
And waited for you to speak to me.

And the silence; it became so very clear
That you had long ago dissapeared.
I cursed myself for being surprised
That this didn't play like it did in my mind.

All the way from San Francisco
As I chased the end of your road
Cause I've still got miles to go.

And I want to know my fate
If I keep up this way.

And it's hard to want to stay awake
When everyone you need, they all seem to be asleep.
And you wonder if you missed your dream.

You can't see a dream
You can't see a dream.
You just can't see a dream.

And then it started getting dark.
I truged back to where the car was parked
No closer to any kind of truth
As I assume was the case with you.

From Narrow Stairs, Atlantic May 2008

Leran more about Death Cab for Cutie visit www.Deathcabforcutie.com

Call Me Ishmael Tonight (select verses)

Ghazal By: Agha Shahid Ali

Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell tonight
before you agonize him in farewell tonight?

Pale hands that once loved me beside the Shalimar:
Whom else from rapture's road will you expel tonight?

Those "Fabrics of Cashmere–" "to make Me beautiful–"
"Trinket"–to gem–"Me to adorn–How–tell"–tonight?

I beg for haven: Prisons, let open your gates
A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

And I, Shahid, only am escaped to tell thee
God sobs in my arms. Call me Ishmael tonight.

from Call Me Ishmael Tonight © 2003

You can read more about the poet in the Saudi Aramco Article, http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200104/a.gift.of.ghazals.htm

or you can visit the publisher http://www.nortonpoets.com/alia.htm

After Hafez

Ghazel By: Mimi Khalvati

"How ever large earth's garden, mine's enough.
One rose and the shade of a vine's enough.

I don't want more wealth, I don't need more dross.
The grape has its bloom and it shines enough.

Why ask for the moon? The moon's in your cup,
a beggar, a tramp, for whom wine's enough.

Look at the stream as it winds out of sight.
One glance, one glimpse of a chine's enough.

Like the sun in bazaars, streaming in shafts,
any slant on the grand design's enough.

When you're here, my love, what more could I want?
Just mentioning love in a line's enough.

Heaven can wait. To have found, heaven knows,
a bed and a roof's divine enough.

I've no grounds for complaint. As Hafez says,
isn't a ghazal that he signs enough?"

from The Meanest Flower © 2007

To learn more about Mimi Khalvati visit her site at http://www.mimikhalvati.co.uk/index.htm