POETRY IN MOTION

I am in another running streak challenge, hosted by Runner's World magazine on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/events/545028802257323/?source=1) and elsewhere.  Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, inclusively, participants are supposed to run at least one mile per day.  Or 1.6 km a day for those few, like me, who use the metric system.  People would run and then post their distance and time etc, sometimes a long-winded conversation would follow, or new friends made.  I'm doing pretty well at it, despite the difficulty of getting up at 4:45 AM to run between 5:20ish to 6ish.  To make things more interesting, instead of just posting my distance and time, on a few occasions I threw in a poem.  Or at least a few lines of text that rhyme or follow a certain structure.  Just for fun!

Pre-dawn, before work
Short run in asphalt jungle
No photos to share

(The past few run challenges I participated I had the luxury of running far away and take photos of the various places to share.  These days I only run short distance before going to work, before the sun comes out, nothing nice to take pictures of.  In haiku format, which in English is roughly 5 syllables first sentence, 7 syllables next, then back to 5 syllable.)


D-tags are red, DNF'ers are blue
I see you are streaking
Will you be my boo?

(For those who are looking more than a running partner.  The standard lines are "Roses are red, violets are blue".  While I quickly found something running-related that is red, I couldn't think of anything that's blue.  I used "blue" as in sad, with DNF'ers meaning people who "did not finish" a race, usually  because they no longer could take the punishment, but also apply to when a race was interrupted.  A D-tag, by the way, is the longish piece of paper embedded with a computer chip to register the runner's position as he crosses the finish mat or similar locations.  D-tags are widely used by the New York Road Runners.)


There is a streaker named Lex
Creative muscles he likes to flex
Fancy routes made with his Garmin
Got him to start wonderin'
Can the same be done with a Timex?

(I've been doing GPS art with my Garmin watch.  Recently, Timex Ironman became a sponsor for the smartphone app Charity Miles, which I use a lot, so I made the word "TIMEX" as a gesture of appreciation.  I would appreciate it even more if they send me a watch to try to do GPS art with LOL. The poetic structure here is a limerick, which I keep clean as limericks are usually lewd.)


I run each morning from 5 A.M. to six
Loud on my iPod is that song by Styx
Dressed in black, didn't see that truck comin'
Now all I hear is that song by Led Zeppelin

(I quickly ran out of poetry format to try to write.  There are many others of course, just none that interested me.  Luckily, I am a big fan of Whose Line Is It Anyway improv show on TV and one of the games they play on the show is a hoedown.  Unlike the genius comedians on the show, I didn't do this spontaneously and had to think long and hard to come up with the four lines.)


I am in this challenge
To run one mile a day
It's called streaking
But keep your clothes on to play

Start from Thanksgiving
Keep logging the miles
To January the first
And don't forget to smile

However you do it
Roadway or dreadmill
Keep plugging along
At the end stuff yourself to the gills.

(Another favorite game of mine on WLIIA is Irish drinking song, where the comedians sing one line of a song, made up on the spot of course, on some topic.  Again, it took me some time during my work commute to come up with the little poem about streaking itself.  Yup, many of us run just so we can eat what we want.)

HAIKU REDO

Argh, my first brush with haiku in a while and I messed up with the meters.  It's supposed to be 5-7-5.  I did it with 7-5-7 instead.  There may be some haiku variation out there that dictates 7-5-7, but I like to adhere to the rules when I can.  Here's the more conforming version:

Marine Park today
Same as pre-Sandy, nearby
Salt Marsh's open, sweet! 

SCENES FROM A RUN: SALT MARSH TRAIL IN MARINE PARK

Marine Park after Sandy?
The same, but nearby
Salt Marsh Trail is open, sweet!

Continuing my tardy re-visits to places I ran to in the past, this morning's destination was Marine Park, the park itself, not the area.  I entered the park's outer path around Avenue T but only went a quarter of the way and did not make a full loop of the park.  I did not notice anything unusual about the park.  It's been over a month since Sandy so perhaps whatever uprooted trees were already dismembered and removed.  Every time I visited Marine Park I thought of the Salt Marsh across Avenue U.  February 2009 was the last time I got inside the marsh's nature trail.  I had some time to kill when the women were shopping at nearby Kings Plaza.  I was with my son, nephew, and a niece.  It was nice to walk on the wide path and take detour into the tall reed-grass.  But kids being what they were, they did not want to stay long.

My second and last visit to the Salt Marsh Trail, in February 2009, before it was closed for restoration.

Late 2009 when I decided to resume having a more active life style, through running etc, one day I rode the bike to the marsh, only to be disappointed that it was closed until who-knows-when.  Back then I did not think of running that far and had to use the bicycle to go the approximately 12-km round trip.  Over the years, I kept re-visiting the marsh in hope that the restoration would be   done, but only to be disappointed time and again.  Until today!

No Trespassing!  Argh!

The Salt Marsh Trail is open!  That open gate, what a welcoming sign!  My plan was to run 5 km out then head back, but with the trail open, what's another kilometer or two?  I made a big loop of the trail, going clockwise.  It was about 8 in the morning and there was only a male dog-walker and a Chinese couple on the trail.  The trail did not look too different from what my feeble memory can recall.  I noticed that there was no other exit from the trail.  There was a fenced-off area, that's probably the path that would lead to Lenape Playground, what I think of as Big Snake Playground.  Near the southern edge, where the trail meets the water of Jamaica Bay, there was a dirt path leading toward the Belt Parkway.  Some day on a long run I'll take that route and see what's out there.

Open Sesame Chicken!

The long and winding road.

The buildings in the distance reminds you that you are still in a big city.

There are few trees in the salt marsh, but what few there were some were knocked down by Sandy.  Or maybe this happened before Sandy.  Was anyone around to hear the trees make sounds when they fell?

No extra raised middle section on the bench means that the area is not frequented by people who like to sleep on the bench.

A few words about the haiku poem that introduces the blog post.  It's been a while since I dabble with haiku so I had to re-acquaint the rules.  There should be three lines, seven syllables on the first, five on the second, and seven again on the last.  There should be a reference to time, ideally a month name or season name, but I got by with "after Sandy".  There should be a "cut", a contrast of images, which I think I finagled by using "sweet" and "salt" in the same sentence.  Would you like to see more haikus on this blog?  Or did my lousy haiku already made you change your mind about Japanese food for the rest of the year?

Not THAT Newtown

My high school friend Maria P. has been doing a swell job of looking up people all over the Internet to invite to the 25-year reunion next year. Naturally, for a task that big, problems were encountered. Not just from people having the same first name and same last name, like "George Lopez", but even the school name is not that unique. The Newtown Maria and I went to is Newtown High School of Elmhurst, Queens, New York. It is a landmark building with soaring towers. Then there is this other Newtown in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Lots of time THAT Newtown's location is simply referred to as Newtown, CT. I imagine a few of these email exchanges happened:

Maria: I see you graduated from Newtown High School.
Person X: Yes, in 1985.
M: Great, please join our FB Newtown '85 group.
X: Sure... Uh, I don't know any of those people.
M: Huh?
X: Hey, wait a minute, this is the group for the Newtown High in Elmhurst, New York. I went to Newtown in Sandy Hook, Connecticut!.

I enjoy writing a line or two of poetry sometimes and here's one I conjure up for the topic. It is a haiku, a short form of poetry, with just three lines, five syllables in the first and third lines and seven in the second line. That is a loose definition of haiku, the way my son's third grade teacher defines it.

I went to Newtown
Of Elmhurst, soaring tower
Connecticut? No!