Poetry Day Ireland is an annual island-wide celebration of poetry which invites the nation to read, write, and share a poem on the day.
Presented by Poetry Ireland, the theme for this year is "Good Sports" celebrating the good sport in all of us, the drive to give it a go or to have a crack at it.
Read Eoghan Totten's poem 26.2 below.
26.2
Poised on the start line in a vest and split shorts
his body is on show: the sinew sculpted
from the miles that have put him here,
the stack of his shoes tapered like a ship's keel,
and his lithe calves, which will carry him home.
Silence before the crack of the gun
then the squelch and slap of swarming feet on tarmac
as Dublin’s roads become both race track and boxing ring,
an amphitheatre of dreams stretched out like a serpent
for miles on end. Up the long drag through Phoenix Park
he gets dropped by the lead pack but bides his time,
metingout his second wind ephemeral as a mayfly,
which dare not hatch until Heartbreak Hill on Roebuck Road,
when he sends himself downhill, legs flitting
like the wings of a bat, swimming in a soup
of serotonin and adrenaline, masking the fact
that running is a controlled fall fuelled by the beating
of the heart and bellowing lungs until
charging through Merrion Square he throws
his right arm high and dives
across the line.
Find out more about Poetry Day Ireland here.
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