Sonnettics

The blood behind my eyes begins to turn
perception from solidity to trance
by pressing on receptors of concern
to where I find my present circumstance.
Escape becomes a passageway of nerves
upon which my subconscious thoughts depart
from fissures in the cavernous reserves
of psyche far below my memory’s heart.
To juxtapose my memory with now
creates an incongruity at best;
at worst, it drags a knife across my brow
before it pushes slowly through my chest.
The pressure is released by stabbing deep,
and anti-climax drains me into sleep.

There is no question that the wind is strong
and heavy as it pushes back my best
attempts at moving forward.  What is wrong
with stopping now, forever?  Life at rest
is not the life I choose.  So fuck the wind,
and fuck the heavy strength of moving air.
I also move, but by my will ascend;
the wind’s oblivious to risk, to dare.
It mocks in one direction, so I turn
and place it’s mockery against my back.
I have the choice to simply coast or burn
this tailwind down a hill of blurring black.
My rising strength is in my will, my mind,
and there is strength within me, undefined.

I know the shadowed path; I feel the ground
like knowing there’s a sun below the line
of morning.  With the darkness comes the sound
of hesitated motion.  I divine
the path by intuition, mixed with luck.
My faith is firm in nothing but my heart
and memories of roots my feet have struck.
I face the faceless darkness as I start,
aware the only metaphor for dark
is pain; I hold the metaphor at bay.
I run the measured miles of the park,
until the gods of twilight wake the day.
Then free to move within the blessed light,
I catch my breath and run with all my might.

18 miles on the Erie Canal Park Trail
3/22/2009 5:30 a.m. to 7:41 a.m.

This sonnet is available in my book, “26.2 Sonnets for Runners.”

Appalled by night, the grinding of the stars
against the darkness, I withdraw behind
the safety of translucent prison bars
that demarcate the boundaries of my mind.
I close my eyes, capitulate to dreams
which pierce me like the distant, starry rays
of godless worlds within the cracks and seams
of endless nights, incarcerated days.
It’s clear the window mocks my clarity
with curtains of perception, dingy white.
The universe is filthy, vast, and we
are nothing more than motes of dust at night.
Our freedom is illusory, at best,
at worst, the failure of some cosmic test.

I think of darkness, fifty years ago
when I was middle-aged and deaf and blind,
when beauty was a song I sang too slow,
and how I sold my soul to lose my mind.
To beauty, raise a glass of wine and tears
and press it to my lips with gentle haste.
My hands are trembling, filled with ancient fears
of uselessness which cannot be replaced.
Three days have passed since I regained my sight,
three days since I could hear, but not rejoice,
because she only visits me by night
and haunting, sobbing silence is her voice,
reminding me of fifty years ago
when beauty was a song I sang too slow.

The engine of the runner is her heart;
the key which turns it over is desire.
I watch her run; her strength becomes a part
of will, the part that fuels the rising fire.
There’s grace to draw attention to the fact
that life is born within her graceful form.
There’s grace which leaves her beauty well intact
while power moves her forward like a storm.
She flows into her motions with an ease
that makes the wind seem tawdry as it flies.
The air is sudden stillness while her breeze
slips underneath her feet to make them rise.
Step back as she approaches, watch her stride
compelled by how her heart beats deep inside.

I never found Elysium, did you?
Behind my house there’s just a little patch
Of trees. An easement with a trickling stream
That fills with leaves of red and leaves of gold
This time of year. The wind is blowing hard
Against the branches, slowly stripping bare
The last remaining vestiges of life,
At least that life which stretches toward the sun.
Were we misled? Did we mislead ourselves?
The grass is getting long before the snow.
I think I’ll only cut it one more time.
Then, if there’s time, I’ll build a little bench
Beneath the patch of trees, beside the stream,
And watch it through the winter, from my house.

Alone, with twenty miles of silent road,
with trees, exchanging breath in quiet air.
Alone, with my ambition’s whisper slowed
into a mantra I exhale, a prayer.
So still it seems I hear my muscles bend;
my legs, well trained, have only to rejoice
triumphantly in stride as they extend.
I run until distinctively that voice
says “Quit.” In shock, instinctively I slow
my pace, although my strength does not subside.
“Just stop,” it seems insistently to grow.
“There is no point,” I hear that voice deride.
That voice is mine to silence or obey,
and quietly the miles roll away.

This sonnet is available in my book, “26.2 Sonnets for Runners.”

My soul no longer fits within my verse,
but tied to one another, I am bound
to write my tangled poetry, rehearse
how often I am lost, how seldom found.
The words no longer fit within my soul,
without the pain of knotted, twisted cords
which loosen with the loss of self-control
called passion, with its Gordian rewards.
Perhaps you only wanted pretty rhyme;
perhaps I truly couldn’t give a fuck.
In either case it seems a waste of time
to ponder such entanglements.  I’m stuck
with what I’ve chosen.  Words will never end,
just like the pain of losing you, my friend.