It is difficult to explain the inexplicable. 
Poetry on the pitch.  Some events defy

the rules of probability, not even entropy
can claim full credit when the veneer

of rationality gets rubbed away
and the only thing left is to stagger

in place, thrashing in the style
of a half-squashed bug.

I would not dare say it’s just
a game, triteness no match

for personal horror. How swift
the transition from kicker to can,

bent and echoing down an empty
street. From kicker to kicked,

whiplashed, the yips, the full
realization of the heavy hollow night.

And the unreal day. After hurricane
Ivan, we drove down to the Gulf.

The sun beat down on lifted roads,
prized yachts tucked high in trees,

naturally as fruit, and dispossessed
stairs led up to nowhere.  Gone

the shore, dunes smoothed to nothing,
a refrigerator stuck in flat sand, alone,

Ozymandius, and when we opened it up,
live fish swam out. We threw them back

the best we could. Shelley said THAT COLOSSAL
WRECK, Smith said THAT ANNIHILATED PLACE. 

It could have been worse we say, unless
it really couldn’t. Even the ocean

has a bottom, even disaster has a limit,
unknowable until it’s reached.

And then we give it a name
and take the small relief

that someday, some future
debacle will take its place.