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:
soloed, mountains, nature, philosophy,
Form: Blank verse
Surly Sally slipped and lost a flip flop
at a hearty party in a bungalow with Billy.
while dancing and prancing to hip hop
whirling and twirling and spinning silly.
Can you reverse and remember the flop she flipped?
Well it ludicrously landed in the party punch bowl.
Nobody noticed while they slurped and sipped
and the dancers dipped and ripped and rolled.
They dipped, danced, pranced and laughed,
pirouetted, and sweated,
tipped and turned till totally daft.
Beer and booze abetted.
The next night they stayed sober and soloed somber.
Crashing and complaining Billy’s head hung,
both believed they’d been belted by a bomber.
Surly Sally swore she felt like dung on a rung!
Let this be a lurid logical lesson,
to those who think it’s only fun and frolick to abuse booze,
Or you too could be confessin’
And for lack of the light of this litany you’re liable to lose!
An answer to a challenge for John Freeman’s Alliteration contest
by my poetry friend, Gwendolen Rix.
Categories:
soloed, funny, recovery from...,
Form: Alliteration
today i saw the ghost of wanting
and in his finest linens, he did dress
he was made-up of may past-up, could of have been lovers
that would like to have had been
Perhaps, maybe, surly possibly...
and in this ghost of greener grasses
i have found no Peace
because in the wanting of a thing or person
self will lie
so in this lie i twisted the truth
and new (knew) love was not there for the doe (female of various mammals) of me
so i will walk the halls of wallpapered, soloed nudity alone
and yet not the lonely soul of me, will be accompanied by you
never, to be moved with the passion of true
that with (which) of nature that wants
natural Sexual emotion
siring (singing )under the waters of wheres and wants
only to mix up unwanted thoughts
no there be no shame
only understanding
that what will be will be
and wanting will not make it so...
Categories:
soloed, lost love, love, passion,
Form: I do not know?