The String
by j. hughes
They call it the string,
and you play it out.
It’s not a fun thing,
to be writing about.
Too often this team
has found themselves here.
Ending a dream,
with eyes on next year.
The table was set
for a brilliant campaign.
Expectations unmet,
we keep corked the champagne.
The string is what we fear,
to see it played out,
As we add another year
To the Super Bowl drought.
“Defend”
An original poem by J. Hughes
You.
Are not.
Your worst player.
You won’t be defined,
By a single, failing individual,
But instead by the collective vitality
Of all proudly wearing orange and blue.
These are the moments where great ones ascend.
The ballyhooed defense does not break, does not bend.
And a season of prodigious promise does not prematurely end.
I remember the shotgun.
Loaded, leaned up against his rocking chair,
smatterings of his faded blood on the porch planks he laid
with haggard hands so many years before.
He wore a wide-brimmed Akubra, tilted forward to cover his eyes.
Not a cowboy hat. Or a Stetson. An Akubra.
He sipped from a cold can.
He waited.
When they drove by, they drove by slowly.
He laid the can on the porch,
raised the shotgun to his lap,
and showed them his eyes.
This was his home.
And he would protect it.
Above: my hometown. It’s a shitty town a few miles outside New York City. It was called Soccertown USA after we put three guys on the 1994 World Cup team.
I always like the Chicago Bears…
…and these two teams are headed in opposite directions. The Bears are a team on the rise, a few wins from a division title and their first postseason trip in eight years. The Giants are enduring the final days of a champion quarterback and are probably a few years away from being contenders again. (They’ve also got Norv Turner 2: The Revenge at head coach.)
A Fan of the Bears, in the Shadow of Giants
I grew up in the shadow of the Meadowlands,
My father’s hand-painted Lawrence Taylor poster board displayed in the dining room window for all of Kearny, New Jersey to see.
The white 5 and 6 sat awkwardly on the faded blue paint, like two tourists afraid to speak their native tongue in a foreign cafe.
I could have chosen the Giants. It would have been easy.
I could see their building out my bedroom window.
The window above my elephant toy box, laden with blue and red and green spots for some reason.
The window I’d shout out to my friends from on Saturday mornings.
I could have chosen the Giants and celebrated Super Bowl titles four times.
Could have had Tyree and Norwood wide right and Manningham up the sideline.
But those would just be rings.
Titles.
Brief but wonderful celebrations of athletic success.
I could have chosen the Giants,
And I would have a team.
I chose the Bears.
And got a life.
Got this website, my thirteen-year and counting passion project.
Got Reverend Dave’s bullshit and “Bears Jeff” in the Josie Woods computer.
Got Rick Pearson at the Goat and Adam Jahns out in Edison Park.
Got the Old Town Alehouse and Rossi’s and Pippin’s and the Twin Anchors.
Got Seurat at the Institute and the crust at Pequod’s.
Got the motherfuckin’ Q Brothers, what you got?
I was born and raised in the shadow of Giants Stadium, a big concrete structure in a filthy swamp where Big Blue played their football.
But I found home in the city of the Chicago.
Where the Bears are.
