Look ...

(imagine this, without a hat or a shirt, running past you on a trail)

Naked is almost me.

Swedish (i.e., hairless),

Underwearless,

Skipping careless

Across the sidewalk. See?

That little boy does, too.

He's toddling toward me

And his matronly ward – she

Must think I'm lordly –

Grabs him and squeaks “How do.”

Do I make you feel off?

I don't for the man who's

Walking in God's shoes –

All callous and bone-bruise:

He smiles at my bare feet aloft.

Do I look like a danger?

Not so to the wild ones

Biking these canyons:

Dust cloud D'artagnans

By a soft-treading stranger.

Do you even see me

Bounding by your left wing,

Dodging its arm swing?

You gasp, then we flam-sing:

“GOD!” “Pardon!” Two laughs – let free.

Memorial Day Groceries ...

Everyone looks a little sunshine-drunk

On a national holiday –

Even the checkout clerk (somehow

Managed to bronze that fluorescent gray).

The scuttle is mellower;

The bananas smell yellower;

The girl with the basket

Sees a smile as I pass it –

Because there's nothing to do but share a grin

On a minor holiday, in the light warm wind,

By the lettuce heads and brie.

In neon and cream shoes, her girlfriend and she

Look fresh from a sprint. They sync like a scale –

Their red baskets swaying front-back. And the trail

They trace starts to look (or did I change it?) like mine,

But they stop for bread, so I'm first to the line.

Still, it always takes me 10 minutes more

When there's a run-glowing girl in my grocery store.

Quest, son ...

                                                                                                                         I had to run if I was going

                                                                                                                    To spend the day alone:

                                                                                  There's too much hate in love-of-self.

                                                                                          “A stick is just a bone” –

                                                            Are the kinds of thoughts I can never

                                                                                  think without jumping

                                                                Over driftwood, broken birds.

                                                        I had to touch to think – did I?

                                                                   Either way, I find I do

                              With a sweat-wet back and two bare feet.

                                                In the summer breeze (a mew

                                     Blown away from the sun) I crash

                                                         silently on the dust

              Of old leaves, old hairs: every ghost come.

                                                    *

                      Running by light feels granted

                              until it dims into grain

           And the wind pulls back, wanting.

                           I turn for home again

   At a tree that's torn since last time:

             A large shredded branch.

Wind wants; weight wants; time wants.

More (something beyond 
  themselves).

“Where is your heart son?”

In my chest, sir.

“And what does it do?”

It does its best, sir.

     “Where is your mind, son?”

     In my head, sir.

     “And where does it sleep?”

     Where it makes its bed, sir.

           “Where is your soul, son?”

           In my lungs, sir.

          “And how does it die?”

          As it next becomes, sir.

“And where do you run?”

Just to be a man, sir.

“And where is your question?”

It's in my answer.

                 *

Seems there is twice the light when
  the wet sand throws it – that band

    Dries a hundred
                             times a day for

          A moment. 


                            Never really land,

          Thicker than the sea;
  
                                nor will I,

 

              the same 

 
                             (half-set / half-lush).

   

                           This is my world; 

 
                                                         it runs through me.

Memorial Day Barbeque - imagine that face while you read my crappy drafts (it's probably pretty close to how I'd look reading them out loud).