If you ever had season basketball tickets, this poem will feel familiar. If you haven’t, it will become so. “Season Tickets,” is the title. It is also the title of the book, by Dan Gilmore. He is a man of many talents, a jazz bassist, biz consultant, novelist, short story writer, raconteur and holds a doctorate in Great Expectations. He just recently has a bunch of poems accepted by a bunch of quarterly poetry publications. I don’t know when because he is afraid to ask said bunch. His novel, “A Howl for Mayflower,” is filled with characters you would like to know because you like them. It is set in Tucson’s Coronado Hotel. The “Mayflower” in the title is a lovely woman, one of the most attractive characters I have met. And I happen to know the narrator personally. You can get it through Amazon, and there is a Kindle edition. “Season Tickets” is out of print, but easy enough to find via Amazon used or Abe.Books.com.
Season Tickets
Fifteen years we had them,
the two seats at the end of Row 29,
Section 20. We were real fanatics
back then, screaming, high-fiving,
thinking this would last forever.
We hardly noticed when,
seven seats down, a woman
in her sixties, a city-league
tennis player, stopped coming.
Turned out she’d had a stroke
and died. Next season the woman’s
husband had a heart attack. During March
Madness the person five seats down —
an irrepressible man with a white
beard and a Greek fisherman’s cap
who called himself Uncle Charlie —
died of throat cancer. Treatable
was the last word we heard him say.
Next season, Uncle Charlie’s nephew,
a despondent accountant who
quoted Rush Limbaugh, disappeared
one day. Died from cancer, we heard
from his wife who sold their tickets
to a woman who was killed jaywalking.
Her seat was empty the entire season
but filled with waiting. JoAn is next
in line, then me. The team is younger
this season, less experienced, losing more
than winning. JoAn and I watch
with greater discernment, nod and clap
instead of scream, take deep breaths
between baskets, and look forward
to time outs. An obese adolescent
sits in the seat next to JoAn now.
He eats hot dogs and yells Go Cats
at odd times. We both wish him well and hope
he lives a full and happy life, but it’s apparent
he knows nothing about the game.
Steve, What a generous and caring thing to do. Thank you so much. This might be a good time to tell you about a reading that’s happening at Rogue Theatre on March 16, 14. Steve Kowit, a great poet and man of poetry from San Diego is reading. There will be a wonderful jazz trio, the Jack Wood trio. They’ll play some featured numbers as well as back up some jazz-related poems. Two actors from Rogue and I will read some of my material. They are great. It’s such a rush to hear my stuff read by real pros. It will be a fun afternoon. It’s free, starts at 2, and will end around 3:30. I hope you put it on your calendar. And thanks again for including Season Tickets on your blog. I am truly moved. Dan