All the good sports go out for a run into the ice storm.
They grimace and squint in the headlights of cars on Riverside Drive.
And they run as if for their lives in this freezing rain that sheathes and has broken
the leafless branches along snow-plowed bike paths; ice-pellets ping off
their pricy goggles, their fluorescent shells, as they struggle north to the pole where
they always turn back for the Christmas lights strung over the porches
welcoming home those who might have been men.
The more I read this, the less I like it. Simply put, it's boring. I guess there's some utterly unpersuasive argument for the alignment of form and content (play-acting serious endeavours, whether polar exploration or poetry) - but it's not working for me. Close to erasing it, but hanging in there for the sake of continuity.