When the Cavs Won/Lost It All

About a week ago I was con­tact­ed by Bill at Fox8 who had remem­bered my pre­vi­ous Fox8 appear­ance about my Poet­ry 4 Free project. His idea was to make a piece about how Cleve­landers were react­ing to the Cavs being in the finals & he want­ed me to come up with some­thing that would help tie it all togeth­er. I think he did a great job con­sid­er­ing he had to plan the piece to work for vic­to­ry or defeat. Cleve­landers tend to be good at that kind of plan­ning. Here’s the piece:

I also antic­i­pat­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of need­ing two out­comes. My full poem is below. I only gave a cou­ple of hours to it, so it isn’t as revised as I would like, but I knew it was going to be a small part of a larg­er whole, so I tried to struc­ture it for both coher­ence and reor­ga­ni­za­tion. I only had to change the first line of the last stan­za to change the tone of the poem. Effi­cien­cy!

What will I remember about today,
in this city
that takes every punch,
unflinching, on our chins;
that rises up from every blow,
standing tall, cut-mouthed
against the world?

I'll remember
that this day is like
every other day
this city working doubles
while you slept on it
this city skipping vacation
to get the job done
this city, laconic, intractable
where we bow to no king
no, not even our own
this city of redemption
where we always welcome our sons home

Today, today
is for 
                YOU 
to remember:

this city can always say it left it all on the floor
this city where every stand is a last stand
this city where we pull for each other, exchange 
blood-stained grins
and sing loudest for the unsung.

You have forgotten (or) One day you'll learn
what we've always known
Cleveland is the city
filled with champions
and tomorrow, 
we get back to work.