The Saint Lucia flag reflects the tropical sky,
with the colour blue representing fidelity
and the emerald waters
of the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.
Gold represents the prevailing sunshine
and, of course, prosperity.
The triangles, they symbolize mountains,
the Soufriere twin Pitons,
and the people's hope and aspirations.
While there, couldn't help but smile,
for tho' located north of the equator,
with my eyes on an unusual sight
where, low on the horizon, and with clear skies,
I saw the Southern Cross every night.
Categories:
pitons, international, nature, night, sea,
Form: Rhyme
climb between the spires
hot bare feet on sugar beach
touch the winding surf
opening and closing eyes
i’ve left earth for heaven’s peak
tour leaves the pitons ~
on the bus, bananas and
warm cassava bread
Categories:
pitons, beach, food, paradise,
Form: Other
Stalking every dream
calling me from sleep
A Yeti of the frozen night
I drove the pitons deep
Climbing over hope
belaying every wish
The tracks it leaves — perdition bound
to wander in the mist
(Haverford Pennsylvania: May, 2024)
Categories:
pitons, fantasy,
Form: Rhyme
KATAUTA:
Her: eyes brown, like choc’late,
swooning like the stars unglued —
yours mad as the moon
Him: pistachio eyes —
the gaze of a soulful cat
sea swept in zephyr
Her: swallowed by the pond —
our shadow imitates moves
of tender years
Him: silk like a spotlight,
the moon pouring forth its milk —
you invite my thirst
Her: sway of tropical
palms, your cradled in my arc —
hammock’s impression
Him: blow kiss from purple
lips, the pitons like your breasts
and the valley split
Together: laughing and weeping
present immortality —
generosity christened
12/14/2020
Categories:
pitons, love,
Form: Haiku
intimidating serrated crest
emulates Ansel's view
challenges down-clad one
to climb her stretch-marked belly
a gaze upward
at silver glazed wall
the glacial rock face
mirrors reflection
filigree flakes
dissolve on the tongue
boot prints sink
crackle the earth
snow-white evergreens
sovereigns at treeline
bark shushing commands
silencing animals
knurled branches
dangle icicle prisms
sun-spotted glister
blinds vision of peril
jagged shards cleave
ragged gashes rake skin
rocks amass between boulders
force grueling detours
precarious pitons
frostbitten feet
belay icy sheer
as senseless hands fail
halo-lit cloud's
enveloping haze
shadows fickle crevasses
that repel gaffs
clawed to the summit
stand exhausted
raise stiffened arms
roar echo of triumph
Categories:
pitons, adventure, metaphor, nature, winter,
Form: Free verse
Thunder walks away on carpet slippers,
wet leaves cockle and whisper.
A backwash of sound lingers,
a rustling of mulch
as if a mouse were nibbling a bible.
"I want to search for the perfect mountain,"
you say, lying beside me in the dark.
You don't mean a real mountain.
I don't know what you mean.
The rain ends at dusk,
but the sodden sky keeps falling,
it splashes where your body,
is deep and deafened.
This thing I am doing with myself;
I have seen horses do -
nostrils full of shock and rage,
a question funneled through
foaming arteries.
That night I dream of hammers on pitons,
the clicking of carabiner;
your hands grasping my features
struggling to climb above me.
Categories:
pitons, poems,
Form: Blank verse
lets double
check our gear
heavy duty
helmet topped with
a light an underneath
chin strap as well as
a body
harness
check
at least fifty yards of
rope with ten pitons
each and as many
carabiners comfortable
for one to
carry
check
now gather round
and take a look at
where we're hoping
to climb and yes i know
we are known as spelunkers
but this is more an orifice trip
it seems there is some
dissent about our descent
i assure you some of these
orifices are seemingly endless
dangerous but satisfying so by
a show of hands how many are we
just me
i see it's that
way that no one
truly wants to explore
just to stay safe and do the
usual two minutes in then out
but i i'm
going to give
her a go simple
foreplay in the shallows
of her bellybutton surely
to be taken in by the sheer
awe of
the unknown
but a sense of
fleshy familiarity yet
not knowing the feeling
of loneliness but that of being one
Categories:
pitons, muse,
Form: I do not know?
CAMP 4
‘If I die, I die.’
The realness of those words
sent a shiver down my spine
as I listened to the climbers.
It was late autumn, 1969.
There was a pause after his words
and each face made the slightest nod
peering deeply into the flames;
Tom Bauman had just soloed the Nose.
Slowly, I began to put pitons into
the face of life, jammed my fist
into fissures, and ascended slowly.
I delighted when my blood dripped
onto the dark diorite veins in the granite.
For this is life and I believe
in the challenge of the ascent and
the use of a life to outlive it.
It is now the winter of 2014, and
I wander through Camp 4.
I look at the young, intense faces
as they to peer into the flames.
I would share with them what
has been my own first ascent,
but Tom lives on, so I scream
to a startled camp my tribute to life:
‘If I die, I die.’
Categories:
pitons, mountains, nature, philosophy,
Form: Blank verse
Pelted forth, hanging strings of moorland curtains,
Endless rains, tart and stinging nettles,
Drive the icy pitons, needles of frozen spite,
Through the scalp into the mind where it unsettles.
God, I hate this land, this patch of grub and blight,
And lachrymose faces, grimaced at their bitter sups
From cloudy glasses, smeared with last nights lipstick,
The dying dreams of women drown men in their cups.
Ah, but when the heather was young and moisture slick,
She lay with risen hems in gorse and bracken,
Below her lower belly rose the urgent scent
From the penetrative flesh so soon to slacken.
Thrown upon the graceless moors of cold descent,
Whatever garments I once held for her in moistened pockets,
Oh, if I am not to see her again, I might as bloody well
Tear my very eyes out from their sockets.
Categories:
pitons, life, loss, lost love,
Form: Verse
I want to tell you of my blue broken heart
So listen close that you might hear
Of hammer driven pitons of regret
In their force propelled me down a precipice,
In wagering my light would disappear.
Sometimes I taste the acid thread of tears,
Unbidden drip a trail along the cheek
And chill the waiting carpet with their frost
And craven open-ended questions ask
With their glib and cold malicious streak.
I want to tell you of my blue broken heart,
So hearken now, 'lest you may fall the same,
Thus take a heed of all I have to tell
And wrap a wall of stone about yourself
Withstanding of the slings of love and shame.
Now everything that burns me to the ground,
Impure of deed it razed this sucker faint
And channels all my symptoms to a grave,
Where resplendent, buried deep in state,
It cracks and peels the monumental paint.
I want to tell you of my blue broken heart,
So take the time to touch on my decay
And though you may possess the ways and means
To tend to wounds and shore the seeping veins,
Handle me with care, is all I say.
Categories:
pitons, introspection, life, lost love,
Form: I do not know?
"Was it worth it?"
at the end of the day
I ask of me.
Glancing back, casting
random nets,
I conclude
nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
I have climbed this far,
from the gentle gradient base,
child's play;
from adolescent slopes,
verdant and lush;
from boulder passes,
chasms and crevasses.
I felt my own presence;
now this.
To driving mental pitons
into sheer ice;
scrabbling and clinging
on for dear life,
when life itself is
a vertical wall,
I claw, I panic
should I fall.
Cheekbones pressed
hard against the dead of night;
fingers white and rigid,
eyes screwed up tight.
Mothball breath over mint humbug
gums, gasp, condensation puffs.
Holding on and praying
to something
is never enough.
"Was it worth it, then?"
at the end of the day
I don't yet know.
I suppose the answer
will be in whatever
happens next:
when I fall towards the light,
when I let go...
Categories:
pitons, life, mystery, nostalgia, people,
Form: Blank verse