Sunday Night Football

 

He did it! A few nights ago on Sunday Night

Football, our young, Kansas City Chiefs quarter-

back, Patrick Mahomes, had a minute-forty-

three seconds to get the ball from his 25-yard

line to the Las Vegas Raiders goal line.

Chiefs were down 31 to28 in the fourth quarter.

A minute-forty-three, mind you, to move his team

75-yards to a touchdown and their ninth victory of

the season. And they weren’t playing at home either.

Well, by golly the young, talented, calm, cool and

collected Mahomes did it with a last bullet pass to

tight-end Kelce in the end zone with some twenty

seconds to spare. With the point after, Chiefs beat

the Raiders 35 to 31.

I got to thinking perhaps the nearly 500 million

dollar 10-year contract Mahomes signed before

the 2020 season began was well worth it.

You should have seen some of the shit I’ve man-

aged to make it though in my nearly seventy-four

years here on Earth. And I never made more than

30-thousand dollars a year.

With age, money aside, some have come to realize,

you can’t win every game to be played. Mahomes

has his days ahead of him as I have had mine.

Now here I am facing the goal line in life. Poor

young Mahomes has a hell of a lot more game

yet to play. Some of us aren’t in this game for

the money, you know. Hopefully we’ll get to do

the happy dance in the end zone dance when

the time clock runs out.

After that, I’ll be thankful when it’s time to be

inducted into that Great Hall of Fame in the sky,

where I’m most likely to be voted MVP of my life.

                       -30-

Chris Hanch 11-23-2020

Something New

Something new. After the same old,

same old, I find the need for something

new.

Old songs on the radio, old shows on TV,

old news, old reviews. Gotta have something

new.

Flipping through old books of poetry I’ve

read a hundred times before, finding nothing

new.

Old shirt I’m wearing, same pattern, old holes

I stick my fingers through. Lord I’d trade all the

old for one thing new.

I’m disgusted and awash in the same old attitude.

and I’m weary of the same old me I’ve come

to be.

Same old place I’m in. I rise up to go outside and

look up into the nighttime sky, and nothing.

It is said that old habits are hard to break.

Maybe for this old dog, the same old phase

of a New Moon will just have to do.

I am reminded that I haven’t had a good

old howl in quite a while.

                  -30-

Chris Hanch 11-21-2020

Instinct

 

The dog or the cat

don’t have time to

fiddle around.

They’ve got to get it

right the first time

in order to survive.

With mothers by their

sides, baby elephants

learn to do the same.

We humans get more

than one shot at it…

if we’re lucky.

           -30-

Chris Hanch 11-20-2020

Days of the Week

 

Saturday will soon enough slip away

(all of them do).

Sunday will once again turn into Monday.

Tuesday and Wednesday shall come and go

(mostly unnoticed).

Now Thursday this coming week, this month

of November in this 2020 year, Thanksgiving

will appear.

And due to my disability and Covid-19, I

shall stay at home alone, just my pup and me.

No turkey, but a fine pork roast with all the

trimmings on the menu for me.

My family, son, daughter, grandchildren shall all watch the

parade and football on TV, and feast in their own homes

as the Pandemic explodes and terrorizes American society

this year.

Then Friday shall come around again, and for me leftovers.

Cooking enough for only one meal doesn’t make a lot of

sense for me, about as much as the different names for

seemingly the same days of the week.

It’s like me lighting up and smoking a cigarette at home

alone after a good meal. I don’t really gives a damn

which day of the week it is. Name any day, they all

play out pretty much the same.

As long as I have that pork roast in the oven and a fresh

pack of smokes, I’ll have something for which to be

thankful, I suppose. It’s those little things which make

a difference, you know.

                           -30-

Chris Hanch 2-21-2020

another day

 

again today

as it has been

for days

on end

no knocking

at my door

no one

scheduled

or spontaneously

will appear

no flesh

and blood

from out there

no visitors

come near

no one

to notice

and applaud

the limping

drummer

in my

one-man

band

the beat

goes on

         -30-

Chris Hanch 2-19-2020

Too Late

 

It’s too late, the cat caught the mouse.

It’s too late, the train has left the station,

the trash men have come and gone,

the horses have left the gate.

It’s too late, the last act has been played,

the batter has hit the ball.

It’s too late, the virus has already spread,

the bed has been made.

It’s too late, way too late, far too late,

the grapes have been eaten and the sun

is overhead.

It’s too late, that bridge has already been crossed,

the last track has been laid.

It’s too late, the last loaf has been bought,

that war has already been fought.

Too late, my friends, the season for planting is past,

the first has finished last, the bond has been broken.

It is too damned late, the air has escaped the balloon,

the last room has been rented, all the icing has been

licked off the spoon.

It’s too late, all the votes have been accounted for,

all the dancers have left the floor.

The punch bowl is empty, and there is no more.

The ice has melted.

The candle has been extinguished.

The license has expired.

Gone is what you have for so long been waiting for.

It’s too late.

Who’s keeping time?

It wasn’t on our side anyway.

-30-

Chris Hanch 11-19-2020

No Guarantees

 

Slipshod, haphazard, hit-

and-miss at best, this body

given me never came with

any guarantees.

But come on now, folks, for

all the starts and stops one

is expected to generate in a

lifetime, surely reliability

should be a given.

You take Michael Jordan,

Ted Williams, Mohammad

Ali, John Wayne, Fred Astaire

and Ginger Rogers, Serena

Williams and the like, physi-

cally they performed flaw-

lessly in the prime of their

lives while I schlep around

with a hitch in my get-along

way too early on.

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy

in On the Waterfront said it best:

“I could a been a contender; I

could a been somebody...” And

look at poor Terry, he wound up

with a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

Come to think of it, as the world of

humanity slips in and out of gear

and limps haplessly home with

astonishing incompetency, I suppose

things could have been a whole hell

of a lot worse for me.

Besides, the thought and sound of

Palookaville does make me chortle

with a measure of gratitude. Being

punch-drunk on occasion is one of

the side-effects with which I

must deal.

               -30-

Chris Hanch 11-18-2020