EMPIRE STATE [Lisa Jarnot of New York, New York City Marathon, November 2007]

I started but never finished an Olympic Ode to Lisa Jarnot when she ran the NYC Marathon in 2007. If she runs again, I'll finish it.

EMPIRE STATE

[Lisa Jarnot of New York, New York City Marathon, November 2007]

[TURN 1]

Wikipedia, that Athenian comic,
says Pindar's poems “are already reduced
to silence by the disinclination of the multitude
for elegant learning.” To which we say
MOO through the daisies
thick like Manhattan traffic
flashing in the sun off stone
& metal & traffic & glass break up light
like multitudes flashing through streets
with no traffic (Whose streets) just
People, O it is elegant (Our streets)
learning from Lisa
she’s running in the New York Marathon
I bet she’s reading in the New Year Marathon
Lisa, like Pindar, never reduced to silence!

[COUNTERTURN 1]

Actually, Eupolis wrote that line
about Pindar. This I learned
from Wikipedia, where I went
to find out about Olympic Odes
when I found out Lisa Jarnot
was running in the New York Marathon
like some Guanyin Navy baby SEAL
or Buffalo poet. From New York!
I exclaim because poets school
in New York in flashing multitudes.
I saw them at the Church, Zinc, Double
Happiness and in the streets
among multitudes saying No war, standing
with Lisa saying No war loud, clear and long
as we now and shall do, till the end, a marathon

[STAND 1]

What else can we learn? Eupolis
(beautiful city, huh?) wrote against
Alcibiades, whose military-political
machinations were instrumental
in destroying the Athenian republic.
Alcibiades was a little bit Rove, a little
bit Cheney, quite Rummy and very Chalabi
though Alcibiades actually fought in a war
before arranging more for everyone else.
It’s so hard not to talk about politics