Clambering Poems | Examples

Get this show on the road

Let’s get this show on the road,
The car's still empty and we can't seem to load
Susie's applying makeup, Jake’s playing video games,
Mary’s scrolling her socials, where friends call her names.

I want to get to the airport, I want to be
clambering into an Impressionist painting of the sea
Ride the chestnut ponies, get back to something real,
My kids are in a rabbit hole, they forgot how life can feel.

(Chorus)
We're on an oven burner, like a doomed toad—
So let’s get out of here, get this show on the road,
We'll ride wild ponies, neighing by the sea.
We'll go back to living, we'll go back to free.

It helps sometimes to leave a comfort zone,
Children connected to the whole world, but to me they seem alone.
The old ways had their wisdom, and a simpler moral code,
Let’s flip this circus upside down; get this show back on the road.

Children along the river

We played a game amongst twisted trees
Then studied the decaying river bank
And as we crouched down onto our knees
Our paper boats sailed away and sank 

We rolled around the blades of grass
So fresh and pea soup green
That shone in the sun like shards of glass
It was the happiest we’d ever been 

My father spotted a Heron in flight
We watched in awe as it flapped its wings
Flying gracefully away till out of sight
Indescribable is the joy it brings 

Across the river some cows had broke free 
As they were clambering across the stones 
They were in a place where they shouldn’t be
All mooing orchestrally with brassy tones 

The arching bridge rose high across the water
Like a rainbow across a darkened sky
A man made feat using bricks and mortar
The safe corridor that kept us all dry 

Then it was time to head back home
Hungry but full of beans 
Children along the river love to roam
Anyway, any how and by any means

Pricked Everywhere

A fat man while clambering up a tree
To pluck pears was stung by a swarm of bee
Alas! With a heavy thud, 
He landed in the dry mud
Bees stung on his limp prick and he couldn’t flee!

The Sea

sand falls sweetly down
clambering over and through
in waves of the sea

Calm Waters

Harbour your vessel in the sea of life
In calm water or safe shores
Avoid wild raging ocean storms
Keep your vessel safe and secure

Wild weather and furious waves
Vessel control you may lose
In the eye of a frenzied storm
You may end up battered and bruised

Huge swells will toss and tumble you
Fiercely thrash you around
Knocking you quietly overboard
The unforgiving sea will drag you down

Sinking deeper and deeper
Unable to gasp any air 
Frenzied clambering to the surface
Yet getting nowhere …..

A helping hand reaches down
Pulls you out of the oceans fury
Harbour your vessel on calm waters
As the ocean has no judge or jury!

Dawn Hike

Daylight wipes its face.
I travel through a door
unlocking an attic of mind.

If I had a best pair of pants
I would wear them
but I have only the next to best.

Small unnamed birds
are clambering
over a heaped-up sky.

I may have to climb a little also,
my best boots are old
but they have been to the tops
and the bottoms
and know the distance between.

I have plenty of rope
new rope
rope as silver and sparkly
as the morning dew.
It will do.

In the Valley of Light and Dark

An upland valley
where sunlight runs upon rippling grasses.

Spirit, dressed in motley camouflage,
pirouettes, scanning dark cliff tops,
its light quickened by the press.
of looming shadows.

On the narrowing pathways
of a sky-lit vale
a clambering heart dares to climb
the high vine of being.

Dark nights have long burnished
an armor of discipline.
The dancer in the warrior
leaves the open glen
reaching toward the penumbra of death

its eternal life
elated by a high-stepping conviction
that reveals spacious green acres
already spreading above.

Failed Suicide

The failed suicide.

He sat on the edge of a cliff, feet dangling in the air
the view was spectacular could see as far as only eagles could
could, and to think he had come here to end his life
Sat there, his troubles seemed small alright his wife had
left him, he had to leave their flat, had also lost his job too
and the visiting right to his snotty little children which 
suspected was not his in the first place
For work, he could always get another job than the one he had 
was a boring, 9 to 5 shifting paper, writing Ok, putting them 
on an out-tray.
Now he had a fear of falling laid on his back trying to crawl 
upwards, but with his feet over the cliff, he could not get hold
kept slipping down and falling
He didn’t fall far, landed in a tree sticking out of a crack and
had grown there for this reason only; clambering to the tree
hang there till rescuers, whose job it is to save people from 
themselves came.
Down on the ground and embarrassed, he said, I was not 
trying to commit suicide, admired the view, slipped and fell.
Sure, the rescuers said, we have many people, falling from
this cliff when admiring the view.

A Climb With a Lost Dog

A windy blow
uphill all the way
dog running ahead
as if we are going somewhere
we are going to the edge
the very edge of a steepness

Climb
dog panting
maybe me breathing
both pulling at a leash
mine is long and inelastic
dog has a bone in his soul
he won't let go of it
I got a rope for my life
in case a life gets stuck
on a ledge
or in case it doesn't

Blow wind blow
my darling is dead
the howl in my head
keeps me doggedly
clambering
bent to the gale
Dog looks back
black eyes wide
she's seen the top of the climb
knows the ghost in my mind
will not go further
her worried bark
a warning

Migraine

Another morning
Breaks in a wet and thickening
Cling of fog, gathers on leaves to load
Down and bend
Each with a growing weight,
Fastened until too heavy to hold when all
Gives way to spill and
Hammer on the roof of your world.
Inside, the air throbs. Fragile nerves
Jar with every weighted blow and cry to
Keep the light from 
Leaking in between clenched lids.
Migraine !.
Nothing worse to wake to,
Or have the inflamed dregs of a dream
Pounding like a pestle in the mortar of the skull,
Quickening with every stroke and
Revved to pummel each clambering thought
Should you try
To escape the prison of your pain. And when
Unable to take anymore, you have that
Vision of a place where you would like to go, then
With your finger, marking it with a large
X on your imaginary map, hoping when
You're ready, you can blast off leaving a smouldering
Zero on the pillow where your head should be.

Light At the End of the Tunnel

Clambering through the darkness
Grasping at whatever is there
Heading toward that glimpse of light 
In desperation and despair

Stumbling and falling
Time and time again
Focused only on that glimpse of light
At the very end

So weary and weak
Though you must struggle on
As the light is getting closer
It won’t be very long

You know you must continue
Even though it’s incredibly tough
Your body wants to stop and rest 
It’s clearly had enough

Determined to reach the light
One step at a time
As now it’s getting brighter 
Leaving the darkness behind

The darkness now has faded 
You have finally reached that light
It took some time to get there
All is visible and bright

So when times are hard
It’s feels there’s no end in sight
Keep on persevering 
Remember that glimpse of light

“There is a light at the end of the tunnel”!

Some Sounds

Some sounds are
sinewy toes scratching drum skins,
a pigeon shuffle-dance on unseen roofs,
a clatter in the flap and coo.

Rose bushes are mute,
until they have lost their heads
then they squeak and squawk.

A soft-slap of junk mail onto an empty hand,
paper wings falling in an overheard flutter.

Some sounds remind of…
dead-space clambering up a blank wall,
chicken bones rattling in the bubbling-boil;
the sound of deranged harpsichords.

Other sounds are knuckles cracking
under cliffs of silence.
The stuttering oaths of paws gripping 

ice.
The ratatattat scrabble of cats

chasing rats.

Sleep prods ribs until they break-up
with the prattling night,
ear-bones surface, deafened

by the cutting edge of a yammering light.

Some Sounds Remind Of

clatter-claws scratching drum skins.
Pigeons are the worst. Rose bushes sit quietly all summer
then only after they have lost their heads
do they squeak and squawk all night.
Dry joints crunch down - listening synovial cartilages
stick shift and slip out of gear.
There is the slap-smacking juggle of junk mail
as it flaps its paper wings and falls.
Some sounds remind of…
Dead-spaces clambering up a back wall,
chicken bones rattling on a tin roof,
or deranged harpsichords
goading the moon to shake its yellow faced tambourine.
Some sounds are knuckles cracking under cliffs of silence.
Sleep prods woke ribs till the breaking dawn.

Veracity

They gather about you
a clambering canaille
of fawning faces
Drunk on the illusion
of what they want
you to be
believe you to be
The superficiality
of contemporality
The fame eclipsing
the art

I stand distanced
from that fickle flock
Unacknowledged
Unnoticed
Unseen

It’s the truth of you
which I seek
The deeper spaces
Hidden away places
The flame that gives
life to the words
from a pen
Births princes, monsters
gods and mere men
Imbuing fantasy
with veracity
Is it the same fire
that burns within me?

City Fire Sparks

A scratching at dusty glass from piano keys

In a lace attic catacombs chests
bathed in blue panic 
room stained window

Hiding from the tell to show
away bitter clown faces without
makeup to disguise frowns
from smiles 

Glass of Rose wine in hand 

Half black and white 
harlequim dress worn
like princess Di

Bitting down on fretted untuned
strings

Yellow taxi clock running outside
in a traffic jam carpark

Great expectations Dickensian
clambering down unsteady 
unsafe ladders

Floor by floor at breakneck speed
scissors running in hand

Final destination paused

Star's

City , Sparks , Fire 

Takes me back melancholic
reminding me what it was
like to be a torturous teen

Dreaming of wanton love
and how fragile youth is

• Short Clambering Poems
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• Best Clambering Poems
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• Long Clambering Poems
• Clambering Quotes