My untied shoelaces tripped me up yesterday.

And to save myself I jumped up, over and down,

Down the stairs, landing on my feet.

My good old feet, sturdy things that last and last.

Lasted ‘til now I guess, let me count the years and make a little cake to mark

This affection that I have with these stubby chunks,

These scurvy chumps of flesh, with all these tiny bones inside.

Moving me around this town and a few others besides.

How do they hold me up?

I don’t think lilies would be the flower that I would want to have at the party for my feet.

And something simple for food.

How about frankfurters? My feet would skip to the ball park in anticipation of a Frankfurter.

Ballpark franks are the best.

Marshmallows are nice too but only if they are roasted.

So I will have to have a little bonfire out back.

I am allergic to wood smoke but refuse to eat marshmallows unless they are roasted over a wood fire.

Hamlet’s famous line ‘to be or not to be’ kind of predates existentialism, I am pretty sure,

Although the whole of human endeavour is a kind of experiment isn’t it?

To explain it or disprove it.

Don’t you think?

When you look at the universe you feel small.

If you even do, consider the universe, at all.

I feel small.

Small as dust.

Only so much flotsam and jetsam, washed up on a beach somewhere,

A speck really smaller than the most conceivably small thing.

I know that there is smaller shit than me, but that is not the point.

Truth rarely makes good poetry.

About the shoelace and the jump.

I did land on my feet. But,

A few day later I came up lame and had to be put down.

They shoot horses don’t they?

The Admiral’s Boy