Prospect Park (Found) Poetry (Possibly) about Biking and Racing

The pomp of colors

though dank now

Soon aching greens sprout

Muscles upward and out-

[A map of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York]

Nor the Slope

Nor the falling temperatures dint my course

Allow me to intimate my plan for the season

of pain, beautiful pain-

Five full training exercises have I blessed

This year

How resurrect my ashes from the forgotten form

Of last August-

A question or a statement

Answer

By laps not time not distance

But by the 3.39 mile loops that guide my wheels

And not a Heart

Not a Rate

And not a Monitor shall encroach upon my path

My brain is fingering the road

Past the runners the joggers the baby strollers

I bide my time my sweat my Accelerade

Pass me dear titanium dear aluminum dear carbon

Leave me to train to dream to provoke my own knowledge

Of the coming storm of spring classics

In far off lands

I deny myself the urge to sprint

So that I can calibrate my afternoons as they

Bleed sweetness into the sore legs

Legs that will not only bless this park

But will bless the summer races region-wide

Where I will

Triumph again and again and again

As I crush and crush and crush all metal out

Of my frame

These five rides have begun what cannot be undone

And there is much to do

Before I sleep before I race before I die

(note: I found this poem written in precise script with a blue Sharpie on an abandoned water bottle in the gutter of Prospect Park West three days ago–ed.)

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