Best Matterhorn Poems
Majestically they've stood since time had its start
rising on a cartographer's global elevational chart
Mountain ranges, wondrous works of God's creation
that eyes have beheld for centuries with fasination
Come along with me on this adventure as my ally
to the towering mountains as they reach for the sky
Let's honor them in our traveling journal of rhyme
penning of their beauty after the challenge of a climb
We'll walk along the Great Smoky ridges of misty blue
much closer to where clouds leave their traces of dew
On to the Catskills, and Appalachians in the Northeast
The States have many ranges, a mountain lover's feast!
We'll journey West to the Rockies to visit Pike's Peak
marveling at the views that tourists call its 'mystique'
We can take the Cog Railway to the top, hike it or drive
Isn't it wonderful that mountains make us feel so alive?
The Northwest's Cascades allow us to climb up three
from their crests, The Pacific Ocean we'll be able to see
Mt. St. Helens, Shasta, and the picturesque, Rainier
For you and I, my faithful ally, will have nothing to fear
Now we'll fly across that ocean to the island of Hawaii
Trek through rain forests and shade of a banyon tree
To the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa we'll go
Then leave volcanic shores in search of mounts of snow
Our destination-Mt. Fuji on the Japanese island of Honshu
We'll reach its grand summit, if it's the last thing we do
Success will be ours, then press on to the highest of all
Mount Everest stands at almost thirty thousand feet tall
The Himalayans are a challenge many climbers have taken
Our adventure'd be incomplete if this one we had forsaken
Travel time is growing short so we must again move on
Up the slopes of Olympus, Vesuvius, and the Matterhorn
To mountain tops we have missed, I'll soon be traveling
and catch a glimpse of those views that are simply dazzling
You're welcome to join me again, as my ally in the clouds
where we'll find complete serenity, away from noisy crowds
August 12th, 2017
Mountains contest
Sponsor: Julie Rodeheaver
Categories:
matterhorn, mountains, travel,
Form:
Rhyme
Wish to wake up surrounded by the snow-capped Alps
Sipping tea in the quiet, quaint villages of Switzerland
Watching the glittering ripples of sapphire blue lakes
Staying in picturesque lakeside hamlets
Overlooking emerald valleys and majestic mountain peaks
Wish to climb the summit of the Matterhorn
To ride in horse-drawn carriages in the village of Zermatt
Journeying through train to Jungfraujoch
Riding cable cars and gondolas over the Lauterbrunnen Valley
Visiting flourishing flower gardens in Interlaken
Enjoying the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne
Wish to write about the beauty of Lake Geneva
From within the halls of the famed Chateau de Chillon
Skiing and snowboarding in St. Moritz’s Cresta Run
Stopping by in the Rose Garden and Bear Park
In the stunning Swiss capital of Bern
Wish to go to the Zurich Zoo with my family
Walk the cobbled streets of the Old Town
Strolling toward the Swiss National Museum
Call on the tennis great Roger Federer in his Wollerau home
Watch him practise his game and spend time with his family
Wish to enjoy some Cheese fondue and Älplermagronen
With Rosti and Zürcher Geschnetzelte, a veal dish
It would be wonderful to eat Engadiner Torte
Taste some Huppen wafer biscuits
And some sweet Swiss chocolate
If I were to go on a vacation,
I would choose Switzerland
without a second thought
Dreamy and inviting
That’s the place I wish to see.
28th March 2022
For L Milton Hankins' "My Dream Vacation" contest
Categories:
matterhorn, dream, vacation,
Form:
Imagism
Triangle of Swissness
On a rage for softness
Bern of mythical sweetness
Legend of the wilderness
Echoes of milk and honey
Remnants of caramel chimney
One Matterhorn mountain peak
Nougats of Iron tweak
End of logo, rise in solo
Categories:
matterhorn, chocolate,
Form:
Acrostic
The Mountain
The Mountain, it could be the Matterhorn, the Alps
Or any other large mountain around the World
But not all mountains need to be physically climbed
As a mountain can resemble a large personal problem
A stumbling block in the road of life that needs to be
Overcome by a clever solution, yes problems are mountains
They are a way of life for us, our brains can solve the easy
Problems, but there are others which are like mountains
Were you require assistance from friends or family
To solve these situations, man is not perfect and he has
No conception of the mountains that are before him.
A problem large or small can cause grief in some cases
These are the mountains that should be immediately
Climbed, it is our conquest to be the one who conquers
The mountain and become it's master and not it's slave.
Categories:
matterhorn, life,
Form:
Narrative
Follow me and together we'll go
Over the mountains, to romance the snow
Ride a gondola lift to the great Matterhorn
Alsace-Lorraine to Château de Landskron
Love in the Alps on the French side of town
Lifted to heights, we won't want to come down
You'll feast on sweet crepes on Champs Elysees
Or take in an opera or the Paris Ballet
Under the snow moon I'd profess my love
Give you thousands of kisses and millions of hugs
I love you, I'll tell you again and again
Volumes of romance but I've reached the
End
Categories:
matterhorn, for her, french, i
Form:
Rhyme
Eyes glib from tree and nominous tree
Go barking with intent.
To foe itself in one-two-three
And leaphing as it went.
In black from shadow nail to nut
Bad rifle cock in hand.
Dick’s Turbin angry as a foot
Suspecting cross the land.
In ukulele’s uniform
A unicycle too.
Bi-dykles round the Matterhorn
With mouldy Irish Stu.
From vileduct out to craggy glen
Fat Andy takes his bird.
And crapping ever by hissen
A trumping sound is heard.
Gruff rozzers with their monty hunt
Watch ever closetful look.
And seeching on a Quakers front
Play handclap with a hook.
Through curlfew bends and spiteful leads
Half etched upon their heads
Mock heed within their harristweeds
Whilst plotting from a shed.
Go bootle up your bottlenose
You onion bread – you scab!
There’s nothing like a good repose
Two inches at a stab.
And if, in some unlucky pose
A match should strike its head.
We’ll light a Camel by its toes
And hump it on some bread.
Categories:
matterhorn, nonsense,
Form:
Rhyme
The pilot formally announced
the desired cruising height was reached.
At three hundred and forty knots
the plane flew like a cruise missile.
As I peered out of my window
above cotton cumulus clouds
such stunning sights of serene scenes
within my musing mind did meld.
Blue-grey clouds created an ocean
of tranquility and beauty
in which islands of snow-like clouds
reared up like Matterhorn Mountain.
Frosty formations of forests
blessed with Amazonian beauty
with canopies of white for green
punctuated the placid landscape.
Like a giant anaconda
a waveless river wound its way
through the wispy white cloud forest
which lined its lush banks on both sides.
Towards the West, the setting sun
showered smiles of satisfaction
on a stunning snow-covered strand
stretching out to the horizon.
I saw a lofty mountain range
Of fluffy white cumulus clouds
overlooking a vast ocean
with a bow-shaped beach at its base.
The images that each one sees
as they look down from up above
are vast and varied as the sum
of grains of sand upon the shore.
They are the figments of our mind
much like the biases which blind
our eyes to those not of our kind,
and who in thought we have maligned.
If we would only take the risk
of getting close to different folks,
and learning who they truly are
we will very soon discover;
that the biases which so blind,
and confine us to our own kind,
like the images, we soon find
are only figments of the mind.
Categories:
matterhorn, allusion, discrimination, fantasy, imagery,
Form:
Prose Poetry
On my way down to New Jersey
to take care of business there,
I pulled off and up to this place,
where I got out to stand and stare.
This was the Kutchingkord Hotel,
the heart of the old Borst Belt,
looking at the ruins now,
you can barely even tell.
I came here once when I was four,
way back in the mid eighties,
even then, amidst its decline,
it left an impression on me.
They had a daytime kids program,
back then I thought it so fun,
though now I see it kept us busy,
so our parents could soak the sun.
I remember the restaurants,
and the cool covers on the each dish,
they put them atop fine Kosher meals,
and I’m not even Jewish!
But now it’s just a concrete pad,
a weathered hole once was the pool,
there’s broken seats from the nightclub
where comedians played the fool.
Fences still up on the tennis court,
now cracked and without nets,
the pool-house is standing roofless,
haven’t brought the ball there yet.
Over there is the old ski slope,
all two hundred vertical feet,
maybe not the Matterhorn,
but once good enough for families.
Surrounding it all is tall grass
on what was a grand golf course,
twenty-seven holes and sprawling,
nobody plays it any more.
It saddens me to see it so,
but the trend is nothing new,
these are not the first resorts
that the Catskills have burned through.
Once in the nineteenth century,
higher up in the rolling hills,
the Mountain House and Kaaterskill
tourists once proudly filled.
Now there are just displays there,
telling hikers of how it was,
that thought just saddens me more,
and the reason is because
I know next time I’ll see one,
explaining that on this spot here,
a place once called the Borst Belt
welcomed guests for so many years.
Categories:
matterhorn, appreciation, farewell, history, remember,
Form:
Rhyme
Matterhorn means mountain peak of the meadows
In a pyramidal shape, she has four faces
Her south face is in Valtourmenche Valley, Italy.
North, west and east faces are claimed by Switzerland.
She has regular avalanches
Her active snow accumulates into glaciers
Others claim they have their own Matterhorn.
There is only one, between Switzerland and Italy.
Categories:
matterhorn, travel,
Form:
Free verse
Thunderous Matterhorn of a right hammer, reduced to a glaciered mound, lifeless by the side.
Champion crew creating a clever cloak, covering countenance. Once it drapes the eyes, the enemy can’t see him.
Ten hollow thoughts try seducing from just below the white feathers, next to his ochre head.
He reaches, to enjoy their coldness, to make sure there still there.
The glaciered mound lays dormant
for now..
Categories:
matterhorn, angst, anxiety, bereavement, depression,
Form:
Free verse
I don't remember when I looked up and heard a seagull's cries
I don't remember the line of gold of my first sunrise
I don't remember the time at Fire Island when Mom carried me to the sea
I don't remember when I learned that all that lives must cease to be
There was the first time I climbed the big rock in central Park
I was having so much fun that it made a lasting mark
But of summers in New England, when I didn't want to leave
Only mental snapshots remain, mental movies I can't retrieve
As I age, I feel new wonder about what I took for granted
In those first years, I can't recall, was everything enchanted?
Is the past a hidden country, and if we look, can we find?
Odd what we remember, and what we leave behind,
First, a chapter locked away when everything was new,
Then a lifetime swiftly passed—oh, how the decades flew!
I remember things that didn't happen, forgot things that did
Memory reconstructs and recombines, and I was just a kid
But I want to know what happened and to strive for what was real
Not distorted by who I wish I was or what I want to feel
I remember 9/11, I was in asleep in a Swiss hotel
Our leader knocked on my door, told me the Twin Towers fell
I looked out at the Matterhorn, realized this must lead to war
Twenty years later, U.S. recruits had to be told what they were fighting for.
Some want you to forget what happened at Tiananmen Square
Rebels once raised a Goddess of Democracy, new thoughts in the air
Some want you to forget the Holocaust, some the Holodomor
If memory can be overwritten, then what is a mind for?
I walked into an old cemetery on a busy street
I saw eroded words on a stone, a memory in retreat
A summary of a brave life, soon no memory will remain
I shed a tear for his memory, then it began to rain
I had cycled over two mountain passes there was just one to go
But it meant a big climb, and my strength had sunk so low.
A man came from an alpine meadow, offered me his chocolate bar
Odd what you remember, when kindness takes you far.
Beware those who tell you to forget
To lose all those yesterdays, to do a full reset
Do keep the warning signs, the values worth a fight
Don't let anyone wipe them clean, don't go gentle into their night.
Categories:
matterhorn, childhood, forgiveness, identity, memory,
Form:
Lyric
Pink unicorn who is shaved and shorn
Was born in the land of yellow candy corn.
She adorns herself with purple ribbons proudly worn.
A torn meniscus and ACL makes her blue and forlorn.
Peach morning brings hope to lovely pink unicorn.
Matterhorn black magic in land of candy corn
Completely heals up the sweet Pink unicorn
Categories:
matterhorn, 1st grade, 2nd grade,
Form:
Monorhyme
My Everest, my Matterhorn, my Sinai
Towers in the distance above the land
Snowy crown soft white against the sky
How gracefully she reaches out her hand
And touches me, and I could nearly cry
So awe-inspired that I cannot bear
To turn away and finally say goodbye
And yet I know that she is always there.
Categories:
matterhorn, mountains, nature,
Form:
Acrostic