This is a poem . . .

. . . composed entirely of quotes by one of my favorite professional basketball players (original here). At first I was just amused because, well, it's amusing. But then I read it a few times and now I can admit to myself that I think it's kind of beautiful. Maybe you will too:

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Erratic Fire, Erratic Passion, by Jeff Parker (A Poem Assembled from Metta World Peace (aka Ron Artest) Quotes)

I don’t shake substitutions’ hands.
I lose my feet.
I’d like to thank my psychiatrist.

I felt something,
But I didn’t know it was an actual head.
I knew somebody suffered something at that point.
There were a lot of emotions in that game.
I can’t worry about that.

I have to try to get the ball.
Kobe passed me the ball.
Kobe never passed me the ball.
And I could hear Phil Jackson–
He’s the Zen master,
So you can just hear him in your head.
Saying, “Don’t shoot don’t shoot!”
And bam! I shot it.

I was lying down when I got hit with a liquid,
Ice and glass on my chest and on my face.
Nobody ever just threw anything at me
With the exception of a few times.

After that, it was self-defense.
I’ll take the blame for that. It’s my fault.
Stunned. So stunned. It’s stunning.
Erratic fire, erratic passion.

We maximize it by playing together,
Loving each other,
Caring for each other.
Kind of like the Care Bears.
You know the Care Bears?
They care for each other.

I partied in July hard.
You got to party.
You can’t just be a boring guy for 12 months, right?
You got to party hard in July.

Why are you staring at me, daughter?
Did you throw that?
Jack, you think we going to get in trouble?
Let me see
How I can answer your question
Without giving you a good quote.


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I still think Ron Artest, who is now Metta World Peace, is a very good basketball player. I also think he is a very good, if troubled, person.

-kevin world peace