Here’s Bernadette Mayer’s classic mid-’70s piece, and a brand new translation in Norwegian by acclaimed baseball poet Elinor Nauen
He wears a beautiful necklace
next to the beautiful skin of his neck
unlike the Worthington butcher
Bradford T. Fisk (butchers always
have a crush on me), who cannot even order veal
except in whole legs of it.
Oh the legs of a catcher!
Catchers squat in a posture
that is of course inward denying orgasm
but Carlton Fisk, I could
model a whole attitude to spring
on him. And he is a leaper!
Like Walt Frazier or, better,
like the only white leaper,
I forget his name, in the ABA’s
All-Star game half-time slam-dunk contest
this year. I think about Carlton Fisk in his
modest home in New Hampshire
all the time, I love the sound of his name
denying orgasm. Carlton & I
look out the window at spring’s first
northeaster. He carries a big hero
across the porch of his home to me.
(He has no year-round Xmas tree
like Clifford Ray who handles the ball
like a banana). We eat & watch the storm
batter the buds balking on the trees
& cover the green of the grass
that my sister thinks is new grass.
It’s last year’s grass still!
And still there is no spring training
as I write this, March 16, 1976,
the year of the blizzard that sealed our love
up in a great mound of orgasmic earth.
The pitcher’s mound is a lightning mound.
Pudge will see fastballs in the wind,
his mescaline arm extends to the field.
He wears a necklace.
He catches the ball in his teeth!
Balls fall with a neat thunk
in the upholstery of the leather glove he puts on
to caress me, as told to, in the off-season.
All of a sudden he leaps from the couch,
a real ball has come thru the window
& is heading for the penguins on his sweater,
one of whom has lost his balloon
which is floating up into the sky!
Carlton Fisk er mitt ideal
Han har på seg en vakker halssmykke
ved siden av den vakre nakken hans
i motsetning til Worthington-slakteren
Bradford T. Fisk (slaktere
er alltid i forelsket til meg), som ikke engang kan bestille kalvekjøtt
bortsett fra i hele ben av den.
Å, beina til en catcher!
De setter seg på huk i en holdning
det er selvfølgelig en indre, fornektende orgasme
men Carlton Fisk, jeg kunne
modellere en hel holdning til våren
på ham. Og han er en hopper!
Som Walt Frazier, eller bedre,
som den eneste hvite hopperen,
jeg glemmer navnet hans, i ABA-enes
Slam dunk-konkurranse for All-Star-kamper ved pause
i år. Jeg tenker på Carlton Fisk i hans
beskjedent hus i New Hampshire
hele tiden, elsker jeg lyden av navnet hans
nekte orgasme. Carlton og jeg
ser ut vinduet på vårens første
nordøst. Han bærer en stør helt
over verandaen til huset hans til meg.
(Han har ikke helårsjuletre
som Clifford Ray som behandler ballen
som en banan). Vi spiser og ser på stormen
slå knoppene some forsinker på trærne
og dekker det grønne på gressets
som min søster tror er nytt gress.
Det er fortsatt fjorårets gress!
Og fortsatt er det ingen vårtrening
mens jeg skriver dette, 16 mars 1976,
året for snøstormen som beseglet vår kjærlighet
opp i en stor haug med orgasmisk jord.
Kasterhaugen er en lynhaug.
Pudge vi se raskeballer i vinden
meskalinarmen hans strekker seg til banen
Han har på seg en halssmykke
Han tar ballen i tenner hans!
Baller faller med et pent slag
inn i skinnhansken han tar på seg
å kjærtegne meg, som fortalt til, i lavsesongen.
Plutselig hopper han fra sofaen,
en ekte ball har kommet gjennom vinduet
og er på vei mot pingvinene på genseren hans,
en av dem har mistet ballongen sin
som svever opp i himmelen!
Please donate to the Friends of Bernadette Mayer Fund. All donations are tax-deductible. Provide your mailing address to receive a letter to include in your tax return.
https://www.bernadettemayer.com/donate
BERNADETTE MAYER (www.BernadetteMayer.com) circa mid-’70s, when she wrote this poem. Mayer is the author of over 27 collections, including, most recently Memory, available from Siglio Press; Works and Days; Eating The Colors Of A Lineup Of Words: The Early Books of Bernadette Mayer; and The Helens of Troy, as well as countless chapbooks and artist-books. She has received grants from The Guggenheim Foundation, Creative Capital, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. She is also the recipient of the 2014 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. From 1980-1984, she served as the director of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project. She has also edited and founded 0 to 9 journal and United Artists books and magazines. She has taught at the New School for Social Research, Naropa University, Long Island University, The College of Saint Rose, Miami University, and at University of Pennsylvania as a Kelly Writers House Fellow. Her influence in the contemporary avant-garde is felt widely.
ELINOR NAUEN (www.ElinorNauen.com), who once threw out the first pitch at a St. Paul Saints game, is an honorary lifetime member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.