ALL OR NOTHING By Glenn Armstrong

The children’s schoolyard singing

held the sky aloft. Some recited 

“Rapper’s Delight,” while I choked 

up on a stickball bat, a masking tape

grip wound around a broomstick. 

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man  

I live in a garbage can 

I turned on the gas and burned off my ass   

I’m Popeye the Sailor Man

I crouched down in front of the spray-

painted zone. The white rectangle

contrasted with the red brick wall. 

I waited for the pitcher’s first throw. 

Marijuana, marijuana, LSD, LSD   

Jimmy Carter makes it 

Ronald Reagan takes it   

Why can’t we? Why can’t we?

Outfielders idled by the chain-link

fence. They expected me to either hit

a home run or strike out. I swung

and missed. The other kids played

Double Dutch, freeze tag, 

or flipped baseball cards.

Whistle while you work   

Hitler is a jerk   

Mussolini bit his weenie   

Now it doesn’t work

I whiffed on the second pitch,

too, but I tightened my grasp. 

The Good Humor man glanced

as the Pinkie Ball sailed

over the fence.

Jingle bells 

Batman smells   

Robin laid an egg 

Batmobile lost its wheel  

and the Joker got away

 Glenn Armstrong enjoys reading old pulp fiction and piloting the way back machine. The result is sometimes poetry. His work has appeared in The Beatnik Cowboy and The Rye Whiskey Review, among others. He lives in San Diego.