Blood, Sugar
We endure
what we store for:
carbohydrate caches,
plied mostly
in muscle,
fibrous pits
filled with pistons
and a sinister thrum,
barely able
to wait
to sing
at pre-morning light,
rays layered in crags,
the range
in its grandeur
asks why
I don’t have
more to give
at the command of glucagon,
hormonal role call
from the pancreas,
phase kinetic,
go, break
the single sugar unit,
spill
the self, me,
curator of polymers,
wreathes multi-branched,
respire, engage,
hold a fixed glare
on an ardor
for high volume
and colors in a sky
that only show themselves
this early
under heaps
of high effort,
and strain
short of breakage, or
not, so,
polysaccharides,
pooled for the needs
of sweet, sweet fatigue
get thrown
at the bulwark of numbers,
and how much
gets left
on the loose promise
of discipline
and mania, fused
to frequency,
at odds
with alarm,
cut, set apart
from the signals
we listen to
or not
as the last stars
take leave
in blue chromas,
the hours warming
at the stream
we cross,
shivering glints
and worn stone,
a current
in platinum
under clouds
like dropped slate
on swarms of violet
and gold
where the prairies
open under
our formulas,
muse as equation,
glycolysis, caloric debt, we
open, gladly
to what
we can’t see, feel
with the mornings one feels
more than anything,
collect
often,
seize,
inhale,
thank,
replenish.
***
Watching Paul Chelimo
“Relax your face,”
the coach says,
Chelimo laughs,
the hurt that arrives
in this circle of hell
taken with humor
and an ease
he chooses,
smooths circuits at pace
he won’t veer from,
enforced
in jest, “Lactic
is a bitch,” he says,
good to see
one bitch
or another
finds even him,
discomfort
has to nourish,
unfurl
on the curve,
steady, his balance
hypnotic, effort,
seismic,
slicing down
the last 100,
a flow, a current
many step in,
and Paul takes
like few can, reminds us,
“I’ve been dying
like this
almost every day,”
then, “No way
I can do
this type of workout, and
just go,
give up,
and die.”
***
New Training Block
or calendar
as lion,
growling agenda
in a cavernous heart,
stalking each day
we attune to the beat
of scaling up volume
by weeks, months,
and game day, pointed
at peak fitness,
then,
pouncing,
a strike
that might
land, catch,
pull down a time
sharp enough
to carve a new me
out of me,
gorging
on tempo pace
and new highs
on vertical gain,
a feast amid leaps
on loose stones,
a cold track,
more reps,
and the endless, gloriously
grueling framing
of road,
eating any temptation
to be reasonable,
the plan breathing
like a squall line,
an apex I study,
sleep next to,
eat, drink,
work beside
and stares back,
watching this vessel
to a low rumble
that asks what I’m doing
right now, always right
now, right
now,
and quick to snort
a wall-shaking chuckle
when I tell anyone
that I relax
sometimes,
that it’s a priority
at all, sure,
laughs the lion
I live with,
laughs even harder
anytime I forget
to stay loose
when I grab at his mane
with both hands,
the sound, the
fucking fury,
grappling with the non-option
of shying away,
and shakes where I live
through to the ground,
cracks concrete footing,
and must, absolutely
requires
full focus
as I
breathe, smile,
voracious,
bearing fangs,
famished,
nothing
tastier
than the fervor of losing
any line
on possessing
or being
possessed.
***
Running, Los Angeles
Alight, cruel cradle we love
at a frenzy, feverishly, we revel
in our Fertile Crescent:
shoreline and peaks
warmed in effectively
one season, teeming tangle
conveying every terrain: trail profusion,
open tracks, streets, beaches,
sidewalks, bridges, mortar,
asphalt, and concrete
past capacity, or
as much as a runner
can want, and take
more, relaying
the angels’ metropolis
grounded, grinding between
tent cities and Bel-Air, uneven, every
background and the first place my friend
from Georgia heard the worst
from some asshole
while running, alone, another
needle-sharp point, piercing
and stitching too much
together, this city,
county, state
of self-sabotage,
thick with the idyllic
and inequity, sexism,
and clarity around sexism,
what one calls
late-stage like a spell
cast with hope on misogyny,
capitalism, racism, bigotry
of all kinds on louder,
longer, stronger
callouts, this
is for everyone,
this has to,
must nurture the falls
and the finisher medals,
the wins and the blow-ups,
injuries, podiums, leaderboard
losses, personal records, segment
catches, and losing
your damn mind
on game day,
and the money
and the brands
and pop-ups and product launches
and brand ambassadors and seeding
and toxic growth and divisions between work
and passion and self and time a sobering and ongoing joke
and return-on-investment and good reviews
and paid promotion and no budget
and more budget and not,
never enough budget
and, but, more so,
this is a language and a lifestyle
and many cultures and every emotion
more than anything, and you see us crying
in photos and videos, us, crying, sobbing, crying
in sweet, salty release
and pain and elation
and the moments that move us
when others are moved and we cry together
with others who are crying with those who are crying
with others who are themselves crying and finding better ways to cry
and breathe out and in with new room to open in the ducts we widen in the lungs
that need more air to move blood and cry and breathe harder, deeper, longer, and ask for more
when we run and need even more when we see more suicides averted and need more room for
more air and blood to move and keep muscles in motion when running anywhere but especially
when crying with strangers in races where no one’s a stranger, not really, a cast of commitment
as catalog, spectrum of backstories, preparation or no preparation all aiming for one place for a
time, and crying, inside or outside, when we see some are completely, utterly done, then evening
one’s breathing to fall in with their pace and urging, telling them, yes, and they tell us no way,
not one more step, fuck you, keep going, I have to stop, and still walking or jogging or running
with them into a finish line where they cry, and then crying on your terms and leaving them to
cry with others and going back to find more and find the shared breathing with more of us
wearing salt in rough patches and pale stripes, prickled nerves and scabs long and short, drying
blood and fresh blood and burns on skin and every type of skin clapping hands and holding each
other and raised
among those who show what we can give
and finding others who give
and we give even more
to each other with where
we want to go and where we
want to see each other get to, then
go in clusters, direct message threads, friend groups
with no outreach at all, and emails,
social media accounts,
meetups, groups,
teams, mobs,
calls, and schedules
public and private, dropped pins
and maps and GPX files swirled around
and among too many circles for one poem but,
oh, so much is given
and gives back
from Wolfpack, Compton Run Club,
Lion Heart, Milesplit, Hard Knocks, Silver Lake,
Runners for Justice in Palestine, Keep It Run Hundred,
PR Racing, Breakfast Run Club, Movement Runners, Run With Us,
Blacklist, Good Vibes, Negative Split, Leggers, Midnight Runners,
Koreatown, L.A. Rebels, Run Playa Del Rey, Cafe Jam,
Struggle Bus, LA Craft Runners,
Coyote Running,
Running Away
from My
Problems,
come through, anytime,
come out, feel
like this is too much
since it is, over
and over,
find more
of what it means when we hear
that Los Angeles is too much, very
fair, so be
overwhelmed,
recognize the surface
for a surface, a start,
a blink, the brink
of a world, our
world, but also
its own sun,
and also a moon,
cratered and given
to leaving gravity as a fraction, please, see
who this is when we say that this
hasn’t started, this
is chalk drawn
and keeps drawing on a line
as wide as whoever shows up, keeps
arriving, yet to begin, just keeps
growing, we
haven’t started,
Los Angeles, not yet,
so
get
going.
***
On the Way to My 3rd DNF
All of this
is about being beaten
by the most beautiful days
I can find,
this one beginning
with dawn over Mount Wilson
seen from a flight
out of Burbank,
morning dew
on my window
sharpening points
of a new sun, then,
crawling,
slowly
down the wet glass
back towards
the tarmac
we’re leaving
as Strawberry Peak
rises ahead
and soon brings Switzer
and Angeles Crest
beneath us,
followed by Condor,
Gold Canyon,
Oak Spring,
and Kagel,
razor-edged silhouettes
I’ve run to,
or will run to,
and won’t
be enough
to complete
what I’m leaving for,
and never will, really,
and Los Angeles
comes with me
as the pilot
finishes saying something
about safety,
the sunrise
now full, a day
rising with us,
its light new
and glaring on the rivers
that cut canyons in the deserts
always surrounding our city
below, piercing
throughlines
that I squint
to keep watching,
take no photos,
I keep each
one, hold
them, need
all of this
close
as I approach
what I love to keep trying,
and soon,
try again,
and will have to
try again,
keep
trying.
***
Greg Lehman earned an MFA in creative writing from Lindenwood University and a BA in journalism from California State University at Fullerton. He has published and edited as a poet, professional writer and journalist, and his poetry has appeared in the Moon Tide Press’ Poet of the Month feature series in June 2025, “Like the Wind Magazine,” “Dark Winters Lit,” and “Book of Matches,” among others. He lives in Los Angeles, California, and all are welcome to follow his Substack “@gregwriting Substack,” Instagram @bestcoastgreg and/or @gregwriting, and his personal website loudowl.org. His ongoing video interview series “Moon Beams” is viewable at all of the above, as well as on YouTube.
