There will be poetry and noetry (not a word. should be a word.) here today.

There will be just enough baseball to keep the “baseball” in The Baseball Bloggess. (But not too much.)

There will be a double date gone bad.

There will be poets.

And one of the best bands of the 1980s.

Let’s go.

---

“Season in Hell”

On Tuesday night, the Baltimore Orioles won. That had happened just 71 times this season. Which sounds like a lot, but it is not. It is not good.

On Tuesday night, despite the win, the Baltimore Orioles were eliminated from the postseason.

In short, it was a worthless, meaningless, whatever win.

(The win on Wednesday afternoon? Also meaningless.)

That means for the next 10 games, Orioles fans will go through the motions of pretending they’re having a good time.

It looks bad, I know. (Because it is.) But eight teams are even stinkier than the O’s including the uber-awful Colorado Rockies who have won just 41 games this season.

It’s like being on a double date. (Stay with me on this. It’s a metaphor and metaphorizing is not my strong suit.)

It’s like a double date where your half of the date has taken a plunge into the painful “check your watch, check your phone, check your phone again, what time is it, oh god it’s only 8,” territory. It is not good.

But across the table at Happy Joe’s Pizza in a little North Dakota town a long time ago, the other half of the double date is going great. They are all cute and happy. All you can do now is go through the motions of pretending you’re having a good time.

Well I’m glad somebody was happy.

Dear Frank, I was not having a good time. (Frank was his real name. Probably still is. I don’t think he’s reading this.)

“I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.” (That’s 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud, not me. He titled one of his greatest works “Season in Hell.” He would definitely be an Orioles fan.)

————

“Go Rimbaud, Go Rimbaud, Go Rimbaud, and Go, Johnny, Go.”

(That’s a line from Patti Smith’s “Land: Horses / Land of a Thousand Dances / La Mer(de).”)

Arthur Rimbaud, perhaps on his own miserable double date.

Speaking of poet dude Arthur Rimbaud, which I just was, his poetry is like a bubblegum machine.

(I think I’m metaphorizing again. Honestly, I don’t know what’s gotten into me.)

A poet, songwriter, typist, writist (not a word. should be a word.) stops by a Rimbaud bubblegum machine, puts a nickel in, and out pops a line of a Rimbaud poem that can be used in a song or awkwardly up there in that earlier paragraph about baseball and double dates.

Seriously, listen close and you’ll probably hear a line from Rimbaud sung by someone on your radio today. Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Morrison – both Van and Jim – Richard Hell, they’ve all dropped nickels into that Rimbaud machine. (I’m tipping my age here. Shhh.)

Editor/Husband wasn’t so sure about this Rimbaud connection until I showed him this photo of Patti Smith in France last week.

————

“Tyger, Tyger”

There’s also William Blake, other poet dude. (Look, he spelled tyger that way, not me. I’m sure he had his reasons.)

William Blake, wondering how he got dragged into this.

Scruffy the Cat, one of the best bands that you maybe have never heard of (and I’m sorry for you on that account) slipped Blake into a song back in the 1980s. (There I go looking old again.)

 

They were one of the greatest bands of their day. (I will die on this hill.)

Let’s put a nickel in the Rimbaud bubblegum machine so I can properly describe the band Scruffy the Cat to you:

“And I danced.”

(That Rimbaud, he’s got words for everything.)

I think Rimbaud could have used a Scruffy the Cat during his short life. Rimbaud was often miserable. I think Scruffy the Cat could have cheered him up.

————

A Nickel For You.

Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, and the Baseball Bloggess aren’t the only ones who can embrace a line from Rimbaud as their own. You can, too.

(This will be, I’m pretty sure, the only time Dylan, Smith, and I will be mentioned in the same sentence. I am cherishing this moment, even if it was just me who wrote it.)

Here’s a nickel. Let me drop it into the Rimbaud bubblegum machine and see what comes out for you:

“I made the whirling world stand still.”

Use it. It’s your line now.