PPTC Poetry Collection II
We all join PPTC because we run. Beyond that commonality we are unique people with full lives and passions that exist outside the club. Learning about one another and celebrating the distinct characteristics, pursuits, and experiences of individuals is what expands our running club to a community. Today, we are continuing to recognize the poets of PPTC and revel in their works, to absorb the knowledge and wisdom in their words, thereby continuing to deepen our community.
RUNNING THE PARK
By Daniel Evans (He/Him)
I like the park in the winter
The few hardy souls out running
Make me feel slow
But a member of the elect
Prospect Park in fall
Defined by commitment
And self-inflicted pain
I like the park in the spring
The masses of the slow and hopeful
Make me feel fast
Sad but true that an audience
And my pernicious pride
Equal good form and fast feet
I like the park in the summer
The cool early morning hours
Make me feel alone
The steady gait of my footsteps
Echo in the quiet
Sleeping city’s heartbeat
I like the park in the fall
Cool weather and hard won muscle
Make me feel alive
One final burst of speed
Ahead of growing shadows
Daunted
By Rachel Harris (She/Her)
Burdened with the mundanity of life
Running on Prospect Park trails
Commute, work, commute, home, sleep, same meals, same people, same thing everyday
For the rest of your life?
Amidst all the sameness and structure,
Running seems daunting
Running a course, mile after mile, finding a way to get home, meeting new people
Seems a little too much sometimes, too much walking, too much talking, just too much
But running allows us to experience something new in the mundane
A way to get out of the in between and
Explore
Running over bridges,
Around lakes, with new friends
Healing in nature together
Because even though it is the same
It helps to do the same things together.
My Body is a Scar
by Melissa Castillo (She/Her)
He traces the wounds of my body in wonder
Your pain threshold is incredible.
Pain-
I’ve lost count of the number of times I asked someone to scar my body
I don’t remember when it stopped hurting
Maybe I started running so long
When I stopped feeling the needle
Look forward to that 20 mile ache
How legs feel like knives are carving at my thighs
Your pain threshold is incredible.
Threshold-
By mile 23 the aching stops
I smile again - endured again
Another medal for the collection
Another memory I’ll soon diminish
Like the books dates I dream will
cascade the length of an arm
I realize, it’s not a threshold it’s an addiction.
Melissa reading her work
Photo provided by Melissa Castillo
Addiction-
that the same giddiness that marks a new tattoo is no different then those last 3 miles
That I don’t just endure pain, I enjoy it.
That I don’t just collect medals and tattoos but insults & critics
That maybe I enjoy depression
a vacation of the mind from thinking
about this fucked up world and my place in it
my superpower and my kryptonite
My addiction to pain is spectacular or spectacle I can’t tell the difference -
I think of the spectacle of spectacular violence we are witnessing in our streets
Black deaths as painful as they are public
Child murder as tragic as it is preventable
Children stacked like fruit baskets
like legos
a border turned into containment
Containment en a desierto
Where dreamers go to die
The death of dreams is violence too
Mama es mi cumple
Cumplo cinco
Quiero pastel
En America habrá pastel
Y navíos
Navíos más grandes
Cargados de comida y agua
Mamá estás allí
O estás allá
Mamá y donde estás?
Mamá ya no me quieres?
Ya no eres mi mamá?
It’s more than a 1950 mile wound
It's more than a fence dividing a familia
a pueblo
It’s a line
a lie
discarded in production
or destruction
forgotten
in the containers
of our American Dreams.
He traces the wounds of my body in wonder
Your pain threshold is incredible.
Instead I wonder,
Are we a nation of addicts?
SLEEPING CITY
By Daniel Evans
Early morning hours
A lone runner’s steady beat
Sleeping city’s heart
DEVOUT CONSUMMATION
by Donna Newton (She/Her)
What dreams come in that sleep,
in the quiet dormitory of death
graves side by side
no mortal coils constricting rest?
Eagles nest in the tall trees
that canopy these sleeping acres.
It is not the question that is the question
the soliloquy’s starting point
anymore, not here among the dreamers.
To be here is not to be, other than in memory/dreams.
Winged creatures, mostly angels
stand still atop these flower beds.
What dreams have come
now that heartache’s ended?
Night is day and night here;
Sun filtering through the lattice
the consummation devotedly wished come true.
What of death is consumed, consummated?
The eagle swoops down on the chipmunk.
Consumed - eaten, with hunger to a sated state
Fullness, finished – at last?
Consumed – as if on fire, lit brightly
flames twisting into smoke, ashes, dust?
Consummated in the bed, love ending
and beginning in cascades of petite mort?
There is the rub. The rub. Rub me.
Give me chaos, hard-edged life. Let me walk
among these dreamers, looking up to glimpse eagles.
Let spring bud these canopied trees, exploding
inside me all at once.
Devoutly I wish for the million shocks of the flesh
reminding me I have life and not to squander it
Let me consume the lemon soufflés and every poem,
let me taste every word to its seed root
complete every task, hem each pant leg,
suck honeysuckle from the very air.
Let me run.
Let ecstasy sate me, consume me as I consume it.
Let me live at last to my last moment: soaring.
Poets: Melissa Castillo, Daniel Evans, Rachel Harris, and D L Newton
Photos by: Rachael DePalma (she/her) unless otherwise noted
PPTC is a diverse and supportive team. We want to celebrate the diversity of our club and membership. We welcome and encourage everyone to share their stories with us.