by Francis Webb

This runner on his final lap
Sucks wildly for elusive air;
Space is a vortex, time's a gap,
Seconds are shells that hiss and flare
Between red mist and cool white day
Four hundred throttling yards away.

Each spike shaped muscle, yelping nerve,
Worries, snaps at his stumbling weight;
He goes wide on his floating curve,
Cursing with crazy hammering hate
A rival glued to inside ground
Who flogs his heart, forces him round.

Friends, here is your holiday;
Admire your image in this force
While years, books, flesh and mind give way
To the sheer fury of the source
Here is your vicious, central shape
That has no need of cheer or tape.