A runner’s lament
Gone like the wind. Like twinsouls that have turned blue-ish.
Two of my toenails have died
without throwing leaving parties.
There is confusion and silence.
While my nails grow back.
I trawl the internet shops.
For bigger shoes.
A tissue cord
Am I pinned together?Needles in my ankle
Ligament overuse?
I am pieces of cloth
stitched on all sides like fields
seen from above England.
I do not wish to see
my red, inner fields and
the cause of my soreness.
Might be a tight tendon?
Bane of a tissue cord.
With each stride, the repairs
of my body take shape.
Natural chemistry
dissolves the needles. I
am one strip of fabric.
Achilles
Both my heels hurt. My heels are hard.Perhaps I was held by the heels?
Over the River Styx (and dipped).
My pain response comes after runs.
Pounding tarmac, I slay Hector,
and feel like a great warrior.
I apply cream. Stone-rub my feet.
I can feel the pride of all Troy
as I remember hightailing.
Beta Endorphin
Beta-endorphin was my exultation.A pulse of silence when I ran.
It was an antidote to two maladies.
The anxiety of Macbeth
and the depression of Hamlet.
Beta-endorphin was my very essence.
Endocannabinoids
Reaching for the environmentand its bloodstained moonlight.
My roadworks are underway.
That means pounding the pavements
at night.
Head torch on.
Going to my own party.
I’m training and sweating as endocannabinoids are released.
My runner’s high comes at a low point in my life.
Oxygen and isotonic drinks
I cannot see my blood vessels dilatebut I know they are widening.
Some inherent force is parting the seas.
Oxygen-rich blood then surges in.
Not to replace the seas, but to join them.
To help me run. To charge me up.
I stop holding out on winter pavements.
I stop the pretence of wanting
to restock sodium electrolytes.
The wet bleeds of potassium.
Nutrients with the right osmotic rates
break all the dams. Bottles empty.
The boredom
Waiting for a running injury to heal is:the worst type of torture;
court evidence that is untrustworthy.
Waiting for a running injury to heal is:
grips lost on butter folds
(astringent) with no trace of a recipe.
My head needs a sign that I can run.
inside my room, I strain
with ineffectual purpose, shedding.
My head needs a sign that I can run.
even boredom passes
its talons are clipped, it’s a steeplechase.
The fifth season
Outrunning logic, but not the storm,I reach beyond Winter and Spring.
It outpaces Summer and Autumn,
a place of new cold, sun and cadence.
I enter a party atmosphere, gold-flecked,
with rain cooling embers in muscle.
A speech is detected in my soul;
I hear this is true synchronicity.
My organs align with my nerve beats.
I greet each mile with deep syrups of breath.
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
Long before the island of Sicily existeda spineless kingdom extended south.
Another kingdom crept northwards
with a craven fear of brigands.
I was running, telling myself this challenge
was more mental than physical.
The two kingdoms met in the middle.
Hemispheres in geometry.
The southwards-moving land was my petition for laurels.
A bird trying to make its wings appear larger.
The land moving north was my lack of peak fitness.
Manifesting as pain in my arms and chest.
Oh, the frustration!
The daily job of choosing not to fold.
This was the definition of conflict.
But would I be able to define a victory.
As I approached the finish line
the two kingdoms merged,
two Sicilies,
crumpling into a heap.
The reward that follows effort
Just get it done bytouching on tenure tracks.
The wisdom that is within reach –
the light at the end of the running tunnel.
The holes in the swelling darkness (that sensation in the pit of your body that snaps into place as
shoelaces are tied).
Forget the pain in your knee
and the overbearing sun.
Just get to the end of the cul-de-sac.
The trees all around do not waste any time.
They do not sleep when they could be awake.
So far, so good.
Mile number one ticks by
like a benevolent clock.
The knee pain diminishes
so neurotransmitter substances might be triggering their receptors a little less.
So, this is what peace feels like.
The right amount of cardiac stress
I see a new view of the trees lining the roadas each unit of time passes.
Each view could be a new art form on paper squares
and my heart attends art classes.
These classes happen three times a week, when I run,
as cardiac mechanics whirr.
The deep space of my chest spits paint onto paper
somewhere and human paint pots stir.
The trees do not know my heart’s engine, but it works,
as I pass them, and it protects.
The way slivers of the sun sow my sanity
and heart chambers form bright backgrounds.
Arteries sing of textures as the pace changes.
I hope there is no long-term risk.
I’m no chicken shit but I fixate on the trees,
and their art, and make my run brisk.
Twenty-four months
Mangled head, muscles sore, broken heart.Days and months became breaches of peace.
I ran for team tightness and twinges.
All of my organelles were raucous.
Mitochondria hit roofs last year.
Breastplate chest, broken angst, iron legs.
The seasons became sponges of sun.
Drenched in their light the damage was gone.
My runs toppled all the flooded fields.
The next year I flew over wet soils.
Bio – Stephen Paul Wren
I received my PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge. Aside from my first-class chemistry and drug discovery career, I have launched and developed the fastest growing poetry community around (Molecules Unlimited). This innovative group began on Facebook, explores the intersect of poetry and the chemical sciences, and has grown exponentially (we currently have 640 group members). I direct regular themed meetings for this group and previous guest readers include Philip Gross and Rishi Dastidar. I have also compiled a group poetry anthology (and have further iterations planned) and I have organised two group poetry competitions (our judges have been Imtiaz Dharker and Daniel Sluman).
My poetry can be read at www.stephenpaulwren.wixsite.com/luke12poetry and I have written three books of poetry; ‘Elementar’ (a collaboration with visual artist Laura Kerr) was published by Paper View Books in 2024; ‘Formulations’ (co-written with Dr Miranda Lynn Barnes) was published by Small Press in 2022; and ‘A Celestial Crown of Sonnets’ (co-written with Dr Sam Illingworth) was published by Penteract Press in 2021. Also, my poems have been published widely in literary journals and magazines, for example in 14 magazine, Marble Broadsheet, Consilience, Green Ink Poetry, Tears in the Fence, Fragmented Voices, Obsessed with Pipework, and Dreich magazine. The Tamarind literary journal have also published one of my essays on the intersect of poetry and the chemical sciences.
I am very experienced at running engaging, interactive events. For example, I chaired an online SciPo meeting for the University of Oxford and TORCH on the theme of the Science of the Seas. I had a key speaker role at two events with the Slade Institute (of Art) at University College London. The themes for these meetings were the Chemistry of memory & the Chemistry of colour. I have also read at many poetry events including my book launches and at two events organised by the Arts faculty at Kingston University London (on themes around space and sustainability). Instagram/Threads @luke12poetry, FB: Stephen Paul Wren.
Author Note: Thanks to Rishi Dastidar for mentoring these poems
Art Works: Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2025.
Art Titles:
1. Waking to Run
2. Motion of Flight
3. Trees in a Tomato Coloured Sky
4. Pulse
5. Demarcated Flowers
6. What A Runner Sees
7. Swirling
8. To Run Again, To Rise.
Robert Frede Kenter is a writer, visual artist, performer, & publisher/EIC of Ice Floe Press (www.icefloepress.net). Robert’s work appears widely internationally & has been nominated for multiple Pushcarts, & a BOTN. Robert’s new chapbook, FATHER TECTONIC is available from (Ethel Zine Press, 2025) https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/father-tectonic-by-robert-frede-kenter. Poems recently in: Pissoir (UK), Otoliths (Australia), Cable Street (USA), HarpyHybrid (USA) Olney (USA), Wasteland (USA), Acropolis (UK), Watch Your Head (Canada), Storms Journal (Ireland) and many more. Robert studied performance & visual art at Antioch College & currently lives with ME/CFS, which shapes and informs artistic practices, process & explorations: of marginalization, visions & hallucination, dreams, spiritual & social change. IG: r.f.k.vispocity shuffle, icefloe22; Twitter: @frede_kenter.
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