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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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May 16, 2012 - 11:42pm PT
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Entrance
(After Rilke)
Whoever you are: step out of doors tonight,
Out of the room that lets you feel secure.
Infinity is open to your sight.
Whoever you are.
With eyes that have forgotten how to see
From viewing things already too well-known,
Lift up into the dark a huge, black tree
And put it in the heavens: tall, alone.
And you have made the world and all you see.
It ripens like the words still in your mouth.
And when at last you comprehend its truth,
Then close your eyes and gently set it free.
~ Dana Gioia ~
(Interrogations at Noon)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 17, 2012 - 06:11pm PT
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By Helen Louise Blank
Phoenix, AZ
Feet
(A True Story in Jingle Form)
I never thought to thank my feet
Who take me safely down the street
I never thought to thank my toes,
Each little one that strongly goes
To take me where I want to be,
Supporting uncomplainingly
The weight I put upon it.
But then one day I changed my ways
And to my feet I gave some praise.
I rubbed and scrubbed and talked to them.
With marble games I strengthened them.
And then, when dressed in silken hose
And wearing shoes with satin bows,
Ah, foolish me, I even said,
"For you I'll write a sonnet."
Now if a sonnet I would pen
I must go out and find a friend
Who might to me the right book lend
To show the meter and the rhyme
That's been agreed since early time
For those who write a sonnet.
And there she came, just walking by
As if by summons from the sky.
She said, "Yes. Surely I've a book.
Why don't you come and take a look?"
I did. Since reading poems grand,
Alas! I hope my feet will understand
I do not have at my command
A sonnet in my bonnet.
from Under The Great Bowl of Heaven/1989
We've heard the "blank" verse jokes, folks...
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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May 17, 2012 - 08:27pm PT
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enslaved as reality's bitch.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 21, 2012 - 02:32am PT
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Frankly, Wee J, I thought it was humorous. Genteel ain't happening with you, ya perp. there is no reason for slur. We just went through that, man.
Let me tell ya I been to the place I love the best
I haven't any photos but I got some views
The Swan Slab wske-up was sweet as sin
This lovely lady oak (a blue, I think, but I'm not as smart as Muir, whose bench I slept "neath)
She spread her boughs to me and shared them with the alarm-bell jays
Welcome, brother, they said, rest a bit more
And the mind photoshopped the blue background from the ground
With the arms of the woody nymph spread with delicate green nails on her hands
Swan Slab's a good place to park, if alone, and it's dark
I probably fell asleep where Muir might have.
That is photo one of my trip report.
The shot from the ground at the bench.
After rolling my pad there was a nut dropped by some trad
And I had slept on it. No one training there claimed it.
My lucky day was well-begun.
Then I visited SAR, met two new friends.
I was building a rack, hardly out of the sack.
Coffee and bagels to a stranger returned,
Tales of speed climbs and dream climbs
And all manner of shenanigans.
So I am selling gear today, I feel I could sell cheap
While sitting on Raffi's bench reading H.L. Blank.
"Against the winter sky
Behold the elegant pecan.
Dark flowers cling
Long after summer's gone.
The winds may sing
God's praise upon the lyre
Of her arms uplifted."
automatic +1 for the Weej.
another shot or two from the Swan
then I'll move on
The profile of YPB, the Castle Cliffs, the Lost Arrow Tip, and the Upper Falls,
Hidden by the slope of Swan as it plunges into the growth at its base.
You are standing on the trail which passes through the area.
The second shot is kind of grim.
By standing at the base of Lenna's Lieback and looking up, the trees have grown so much in 41 years, they obscure the view of the upper two pitches.
I would not want to fall into those branches. I took that screamer there in '71 and those branches were nowhere the size they are now. Yuck! I wouldn't want to really press my luck.
Let's get back to Big Columbia boulder and Raffi's bench.
You know he dropped an "a" from his name and Peter Paan picked it up.
So the boy's resting his nogg on his hands lying stretched out on the marble
He's thinking of the Fires of his youth (a "relative youth" even when purchased; God had just learned to "tie His shoes, always tie His shoes") that are in the bag for sale with the iron
He thinks how he hates them they've never been nice,
What the f*#k would good old Helen have to say if I laid that on her?
Back in the darkroom of my mind I am framing the view with my head on the SAR site side of the slab of granite, it's granite, I get it. I just took it for granite it was marble earlier.
so the boulder I'm weejing on the left side, the twisty cedar grows next to it behind the bench is bringing in the right side
snap the shutter and you see mainly tree
its branches spiral. its trunk twists. its barry bates in the fiber!
bump for the tree which has mastered the lightning and the bench which lies below
and Columbia's the gem of my notion
Helen was my wife's stepfather's mother.
Why all the blank looks?
And the sun sinks west of Screamy Valley.
And the lights wink on.
And the dreams move in.
But I'm back on the bus.
(Barking Dog Good dog Good beer)
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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May 21, 2012 - 04:04am PT
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Frothing forth through my insipid dilemma
Aw fuhget about it...
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Da_Dweeb
climber
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May 21, 2012 - 10:49am PT
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I used to wonder what friendship could be.
Then I took an arrow to the knee.
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tom Carter
Social climber
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May 21, 2012 - 12:54pm PT
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Introduction to Poetry
BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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May 21, 2012 - 01:15pm PT
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To die, to sleep—
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.
(Hamlet: 3, 1, I)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 21, 2012 - 01:22pm PT
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The Diners' Club, or
Carter Blanche
Sitting at the laureate's table
sipping his wine.
Bending my ear to his wicked
witchy wit.
Twitchy I sit until
it's my turn to squeak.
The r's roll and the ums hum.
Speaking in tongues with a mouthful,
I said,
Looking him in the eye with a stalk of celery,
"I can't for the life of me figure out what you are saying."
Too much Sauvignon Bland.
Too much Blank verse.
It gives me paws to think I am drunk on wine and what's worse,
Verse.
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tom Carter
Social climber
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May 22, 2012 - 01:09am PT
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Very Nice BB
Here's another -
"Hard Rain,"
by Tony Hoagland
After I heard It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there's nothing
we can't pluck the stinger from,
nothing we can't turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people
quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.
You can't keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,
one day at a time—
and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.
Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.
I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,
but that was just another song that had been taught to me since birth—
whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 25, 2012 - 08:39pm PT
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A Simple-minded vision of a twisted fire.
Stayin' alive on Turtle Island.
The Ouch-less F*#ks or Deeper than Love.
The Bee vs. the Wasp.
Championismo.
Grasping at Straws.
Elbow of El Cap: Tales of Nerve.
Winding Wind River Stories.
Los An-jealous/Los Angle-ees.
Summer's Midnight Dream of "Avondale" Bard.
All titles of stuff I'd like to compose.
Too lazy.
Also, like Ed Hartouni observed regards Robson,
"I'd have to want to go through that kind of suffering...and even then it's a crap shoot."
I obviously need...Music!
Something to which I could perchance poeticize to.
A nightmare a dream a reality a fake
It's all the same asleep/awake
Rilke Mozart
Rocky Raccoon
All the same
Even though
It's all the same.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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May 27, 2012 - 06:23pm PT
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Mysteries, Yes
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(Evidence)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 28, 2012 - 09:52pm PT
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The Pie Shop, Tahoe. Wedgie, I, 5.3.14159
Mary Oliver got me thinking of peace. Then I thought of the olives in my Mom's tamale pie. This nostalgia led to pies I had eaten before.
It was a transcendent moment. The circle of my thoughts came to nothing. Which is represented by a circle.
With no further circumlocution, remember happiness runs in a circular motion, according to Donovan Leitch, not in a straight line.
If inside a circle line
Hits the center and goes spine to spine
And the length's line is "d,"
The circumference will be
d times 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
Simple Simon met a pi man
Going to the fair.
Said Simple Simon to the pi man,
"You have unusual ware.
The pies I've seen were round
But, gosh, your pi's are square."
Joni's Pi Conic Song
The Circle Game
Yesterday, a child came out to wander
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star.
Then, the child moved ten times 'round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, "When you're older," must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams.
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town
And they tell him, "Take your time it won't be long now
Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down."
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through.
And the seasons, they go 'round and 'round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go 'round and 'round
In the circle game
And go 'round and 'round in the circle game.
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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May 29, 2012 - 09:55am PT
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more word art than poetry,
i am a mountain.
well-being and prosperity, mountainears.
up me they climb until
they find my highest.
enjoy a brief reprieve, they.
life then unleashes good storms
and my crown of respectability
comes a-avalanching down in the form
of illness and bad habits.
i just stand here, geo-like.
the fleeting life seeds
they come and they go
and i am hardly phased.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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Like the train of your thought, MfM! Need to get the schedule so I can jump on at the next stop.
Sublime, weeg.
More Mary Oliver:
Can You Imagine?
For example, what the trees do
not only in lightening storms
or the watery dark of a summer's night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now - whenever
we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine
they don't dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade - surely you can't imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can't imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(Long Life)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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The tree felled the climber
Inside each tree is a circle
One flat round plane set atop another
An infant, it numbers its chances to survive as good
There are an infinite number of possiblities
It might grow fast or slow
It might grow high or low
It might grow wide or slim
It might grow up to be matchsticks
Take those matchsticks and burn the forest down
The trees will make mock and return
Boulder-makers
Beetle-feeders
Gymnasiums for the quadruped tribe
Home to billions of arthropods
Lonely on Sentinel and Point Lobos
And the flag of the state of my mind
Grow where you are planted
Take nothing for granted
How can a tree be
Smarter than me?
Fletcher, it's not a train of thought so much as a bumper car ride of the imagination, non-scheduled and destined who knows where?
No mileage restrictions, though.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Eye Can't See Underground!
The roots of the tree of which we listen are the froots.
They lie beneath the soil up in the Top Forty.
Bod Dylan's a root. The Roots are his froots.
Jimmy, please don't fall on me. Thank you, Jimmy Fallon, for Thank Yous.
This child is spoiled enough.
! can't say much good about Rod McKuen's pottery, but he seems like he was a nice guy. Just a mediocre poet.
It's why they aren't called the Rods.
But what ! meant to say,
About whom ! meant to speak,
He lies in bed awake,
To think.
Perchance to climb.
To write.
To finish where the Eagles fear to play,
Where soloes are the only way to go,
The froots of his labor devoured
By apes like !.
(thanks for the p.m., Norv. Heart of the World.)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Toast a Reply
There was a time a short time back ago,
When I used to have to repeat myself to myself
To remember there is no I in me.
If that means anything to me
It is meaningless to thee
Unless thou read me again.
These are my thoughts
And now they are yours,
A gift, me to thee.
The article I saw in Dot's Me magazine?
That the last thing I would have thought of.
Period.
Who ate my Post Toasties
And left me none?
Guess I'll have some Texas Flakes and listen to Janis sing.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Just saying,
If a video is posted, let it be a ballad, a poem set to music.
I guess that's a ballad. Here's a good example, even if she was a Texan.
The Rose of Port Arthur.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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Jun 29, 2012 - 10:29am PT
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A Rescue
Today I wrote some words that will see print.
Maybe they will last "forever," in that
someone will read them, their ink making
a light scratch on his mind, or hers.
I think back with greater satisfaction
upon a yellow bird--a goldfinch?--
that had flown into the garden shed
and could not get out,
battering its wings on the deceptive light
of the dusty, warped-shut window.
Without much reflection, for once, I stepped
to where its panicked heart
was making commotion, the flared wings drumming,
and with clumsy soft hands
pinned it against a pane,
held loosely cupped
this agitated essence of the air,
and through the open door released it,
like a self-flung ball,
to all that lovely perishing outdoors.
~ John Updike ~
(Americana, 2001)
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