Now I want to read a poem about basketball,
I want to read that poem, the Magic Johnson poem.
A couple of poems about basketball,
then I'll read a couple of other things.
Then I'll be through.
I wrote this poem because I was a basketball player,
and I've only been able to write two poems about basketball,
really, and I wrote this part for Magic Johnson
because I love the way he played.
And he always came to win, and he always came to win.
He would do anything to win.
If the coach said he hit 45 points, he hit 45 points.
He said get two points and 25 rebounds in 15 minutes.
He'd go out there and do that.
Whatever the coach told him to do, he would do.
I found that amazing, you know.
I found that just incredible.
He was just a great player, so I'd always
try to write a poem for a basketball player
at the speed of basketball.
I told Van Hirsch one time, your poem
is too slow about basketball.
Too slow, too slow.
So I wrote this one.
He said well then you ought to do one.
I said, yeah, that's right.
"Poem For Magic".
"Take it to the hoop, Magic Johnson.
Take the ball dazzling down the lane.
Herk and jerk and raise your six feet nine inch
frame into the air spraying screams of your neon
name, Magic Johnson, nickname Windex way back in high school
because you wipe glass backboard so clean.
Where you first juked and shook, wiled your way
to glory, a new style fusion of shake and bake energy
using everything possible.
You create your own space to apply it through.
Any moment now we expect your wings
to spread feathers for that spooky takeoff of yours,
then shake and glide and ride up in space till you hammer home
a clotheslining deuce off glass now.
Come back down with a reverse hoodoo gem off the spin
and stick it in sweet, popping nets
clean from 20 feet, right side.
Put the ball on the floor again Magic.
Slide the dribble behind your back.
Ease it deftly between your bony, stark legs, head
bobbing everwhichway, up and down.
You see everything on the court, off the high yo-yo patter
stop-and-go dribble.
You thread a needle, rope pass sweet home to Kareem
cutting through the lane, his skyhook pops the cords.
Now, lead the fast break.
Hit worthy on the fly.
Now, blindside a pinpoint behind the back pass for two more
off the fake, looking the other way you raise off balance
into electric space sweating chants of your name.
Turn 180 degrees off the move.
Your lane scissoring space, like a swimmer's yo-yoing motion
in deep water.
Stretching out now toward free flight,
you double pump through human trees.
Hang in place.
Slip the ball into your left hand.
Then deal it like a Las Vegas card dealer off
squared glass into nets.
Living up to your singular nickname so bad
you cartwheel the crowd toward frenzy,
wearing now your electric smile neon as your name.
In victory, we suddenly sense your glorious uplift,
your urgent need to be champion, and so we cheer with you,
rejoice with you for this quicksilver, quicksilver,
quicksilver moment of fame.
So put the ball on the floor again, Magic.
Juke and dazzle.
Shake and bake down the lane.
Take the sucker to the hoop, Magic Johnson.
Recreate reverse hoodoo gems off the spin.
Deal alley oop dunkathon magician passes now.
Double pump, scissor, vamp through space, hang in place,
and put it all up in the sucker's face, Magic Johnson.
Deal the round ball, like the juju man
that you am, like the sho-nuff shaman man that you am.
Magic, like the sho-nuff spaceman you am.