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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Aug 29, 2010 - 02:14pm PT
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"Why" is asked,
by those who seek control.
Better to ask,
"What else?"
"What's next?"
or,
"What if?"
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Aug 29, 2010 - 02:17pm PT
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i will
until
i can't
and then
I won't
because
i don't
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Disaster Master
Sport climber
Arcata / Santa Rosa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 29, 2010 - 02:33pm PT
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It's nothing new, just a scribble from a spoken word free flow thing I did back when:
Babe,
we all have a dark side.
You just don't want to free it,
but believe it,
you got one too.
All you ask for is the bright side.
The way I see it
you just neglect
to push on through.
Hey,
I like to play
in the dark
after a trying day.
But remember?
You asked me
to stay.
Infatuation is
a wonderful drug.
But it fades away.
You said you needed me
to read expansive praises,
words and phrases
that framed the part of Me
you loved to see.
Today, as I watched
you walk away
I realized...
All you wanted
was the Poetry.
-Paul David Humphrey
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Aug 29, 2010 - 02:36pm PT
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you can rack,
or you can stack,
hit the crack,
jack!
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Srbphoto
climber
Kennewick wa
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Aug 29, 2010 - 02:51pm PT
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rising from madness
moon illuminates granite
welcome home captain
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Aug 29, 2010 - 03:12pm PT
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I wrote this one when I was in college. What a dweeb.
Running and Dancing
Inches every moment
Falling forward
Moments of eternity
Running back
Eternity seeds reality
Trying to reach
Reality pervades perception
Clinging to fragments
Perception mutates consciousness
Eyes grow wings
Consciousness brings pain
Roots envisage uncertainty
Pain surrounds truth
Slave of time
Truth awaits inevitability
Bound to forms
Inevitability beckons the absolute
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Disaster Master
Sport climber
Arcata / Santa Rosa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 29, 2010 - 05:44pm PT
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OOOH-K, Angst seems truly universal in the poetry field of screams. Here's for when the words don't work.
FILL IN THE BLANKS
Paul D. Humphrey
Fill in the Blanks w/ Thoughts.
For Thoughts are all there are.
No Words to use,
no Signs to see,
just the thoughts of
We the Mind.
Simple Vowels or rows of Runes
amount to naught, indeed.
The Deed is fruitless.
The Meaning is lost.
Somewhere within my mind
a Rebellion has gone off.
No rebellion is wrong,
the wrong word to use.
Ah, that’s the gist: WORDS!
They fly like Birds, away
from what I want to Say.
Perhaps I Cannot,
though I Ought.
Unless……
I cannot Express.
And that is what I mean.
(So it would seem.)
How about poems to give someone who hates poetry? (Not to get them to hate it more!)
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Disaster Master
Sport climber
Arcata / Santa Rosa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 1, 2010 - 05:50pm PT
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Happy poems, anyone? I need to perk up.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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based on a true life adventure before the invention of the poop pouch. not a happy ending for poor fairmont, but you might have a laugh.
Much Ado
(A passage in doggerel)
O Central Park has its muggers,
And Bunyan Park has its logs,
Old Bughouse Square has its buggers,
But Cedar Park has its dogs.
O Cedar, the forest primeval
Where pheasant and raccoon and deer
Once haunted the green vegetation
But no longer dare venture near.
For now the great forest is empty,
Looks like a yard where the hogs
Have rooted and muddied the soil:
O Cedar has gone to the dogs!
No golf course has hazards so dang'rous,
No minefield is such no-man's-land
Where stepping can be so disast'rous
As when doggies have passed on the strand.
See Junior — he girds for the battle!
To play in the park like a boy
Six sets of new tennies he carries,
Braving poodle, chihuahua and toy.
O Junior, he ventures so manly
(One slip of the foot and he's through)
To travel the wilderness cannily
'Twixt canyons of piled doggie-do.
The fathers of fair Fairmont city
Had weathered the plague far too long,
A great public clamor raised pity
For shoes, pants and shirts dogs had wronged.
So rising in duty to action
They ordered that dogs foul no more,
And stalwart, unswaying to faction:
"Sic 'em, dogcatcher, padlock the door."
The ord'nance brought great jubilation,
The people cheered, danced in the street,
Their steps now lacked all trepidation,
No more did they fear for their feet.
The council sent word from its chambers,
The dogs, they were round up and tied,
No more would park walking be dangerous
Or we'll tan all the canines' old hides.
Oh, oh, the relief it was heartfelt
And Fairmont at ease was at last,
The park was for people: no part smelt —
But the story's not through, not so fast ...
The next time the fathers did gather,
The night, it was eerily still,
A howlin' full moon had arisen,
The air, it had kind of a chill.
The meeting was over much faster,
The councilmen set to go home,
When they met at the door great disaster,
A terrible sight, met their doom:
The poor city hall was surrounded
By spitz, St. Bernard, collie, chow,
And yorkies and fierce English shepherds
Had blocked up the exit somehow.
The fathers were trapped and no rescue
Could save them, alas none could budge,
For who in his right mind would venture
Through undainty, goshawful sludge?
The council was lost — ah, the fortune!
So cruel, how we shall miss them all!
No ghoul could devise death by torture
Like live burial in city hall!
Now travelers across our wide country
Have many a strange sight to see,
But none like that heap by the freeway
Where fair Fairmont once used to be.
(c) F. A. Bird
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from a crimp and crying for my mama.
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Well, I just wrote this just for you.
-------
they are the hands that pulls you up
even when you want to stay and crawl
they are the finger that points at what needs to be remade
they bring you the truth when you stand in denial
they are the voice that won't always agree
they are the people that believe
to them you are one of the best
a person better than your mistakes
they are the people who will help you along
while seeing the humor behind it all
when all has failed they will make it work
they will make you smile when it hurts
they are both strangers and kin
they are your best friends
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MisterE
Social climber
Bouncy Tiggerville
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Call of the Wild
Call of the wild
echoes down canyon walls
a moon holding water
pulls yearning from us all.
Call of the wild:
heed the call
feed the call
screaming cat-call of the wild.
Wild is as wild does
circle returns us
to the time that was.
Beating wings, fleeting wings
sacred dance of all living things.
Predator or prey
who's to say
to soil we all
return someday.
Call your totems, find your creatures
in wildness we find
all the great teachers.
Animals in the woods,
thugs in the 'hood
wild, man - really wild.
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MisterE
Social climber
Bouncy Tiggerville
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58 Degrees
The Taku winds are blowing
ripping down the streets
winter blues are showing
sure are hard to beat.
At the back of the north wind,
southern winds blow cold.
In darkness, luminescence,
seeking Alaskan gold.
Northland of the heart
giant within us all,
a different breed of folks
hear the northern call.
Sun will come back some day
warm the dark and freezing
wintertime, so sublime
for many the hardest season.
The Taku winds are blowing
ripping down the streets,
northern light are glowing,
sure is hard to beat.
Fifty-eight degrees
take me home, if you please.
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MisterE
Social climber
Bouncy Tiggerville
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Ode to William Bukowski
Willie B
shot his girl
one night when he was drunk.
Believed in nothing
but his cats, friends with a
gun-toting monk.
Horse meditations,
Buddha iconoclast.
Locked in a basement room,
a life of burying the past.
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Disaster Master
Sport climber
Arcata / Santa Rosa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 10, 2010 - 02:47pm PT
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Ok, it's not ALL poetry, but perhaps you'll like. this was published in the now defunct mag MountainFreak a number of years ago.
C-Ya,
Paul
Free To Be
Paul D. Humphrey
A friend recently told me of an amazing rock climb he had completed. “Perfect rock” he exclaimed, his arms and hands drawing maps in the air. Just where he needed them, ideal hand-holds had appeared, edges and pockets, coaxing him on until the final climactic crux just below the anchors. Sounded fantastic. A perfect route for sure. But perfect rock? I don’t think so.
Climbers are often a dedicated bunch. Many spend their whole careers seeking out “perfect stone”. They rate their routes on solidity as well as difficulty, and seem ill at ease on less than solid stone, or “choss”. Others lurk at the other extreme where the worse the rock and the more meager the protection opportunities the better. These folks focus on the barely attainable, coaxing both aid and free routes out of the most improbable stone. Neither of these groups, though, have ever climbed Perfect Rock...
Not if you think like a Taoist.
I was first introduced to Taoist philosophy in college. At first I read it to act intellectual. But I was too busy thinking about being brainy to understand much of it. Now I read through those books and simply enjoy them. Every once in a while I learn something too.
Chang-Tzu, a semi-mythical Chinese philosopher, wrote down many stories with Taoist themes. One of my favorites is the story of a giant gnarled tree. I will paraphrase:
There once was a huge tree who’s limbs were so twisted and gnarled that it could not be used for lumber. Its bark emitted a pungent sap that would not dry enough to use the tree for firewood. A woodcutter spoke with Chang-Tzu about it. “This is the ugliest tree I have ever seen! It is worthless for any purpose.”
Chang-Tzu agreed. “The virtue of this tree is in is worthlessness. By being unusable for any human purpose it is free to be a tree.”
Perfect.
Climbers can only exist on the rock because of its imperfections. We climb its fissures and holes. Our rock may be beautiful, but it is not perfect. Perfect stone is beyond our use. Our skill can not overcome it. It can be so rotten it cannot be hooked or pitoned, or so monolithic our hands find no purchase. It excepts no welcoming protection. It is what it is, perfectly worthless.
Two of my favorite cliffs have sections of perfect rock. One is a sea cliff with a hundred foot headwall so loose it crumbles if you sneeze on it. It revels in its ragged decay. A single hole in its center is the only weakness, and it is occupied by a nesting Cormorant. She could not have chose a safer home.
The other wall is small, perhaps fifty feet by forty, and is flanked on both sides by climbable stone. Perched high on a forested ridge, it looks west towards the sea. Its limestone is smooth as cream, and it flows in a hold-free curtain of blue and yellow stripes. You could frame it and sell it as art. But you couldn’t cling to it, I bet. It’s Free To Be.
I was at this second wall, climbing exceptional rock around the corner from Perfection, when all these meandering thoughts fused together in me. It was a nice moment. The heat came on strong that afternoon. The raptors spiraled high on the thermals. Sluggish and fatigued, I scrambled up a gully to a small cave. It was nearly cylindrical, a twisting tube four feet across. I lay down just inside its mouth and let its cool breath lull me to sleep as I remembered something I had written years before...
Follow me up
through bent and folded layers,
up into the Sunshine
of a hundred-thousand years ago.
I have been sitting here since then,
thinking crystallized thoughts,
Pondering 36 million sunsets.
Here under the sky again.
Trace my folds
and bands of crystals,
formed by a heat
greater than passion,
forged together and
set far below.
I was once like you,
walking in the Sunlight
for a few score
of fog-lit mornings,
before the borders failed,
and I disintegrated.
You will soon enough be like me,
solid and stoic,
warming and cooling
with the summer Sun
and the winter snows;
thinking crystal thoughts,
for another
hundred-thousand years.
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PhilG
Trad climber
The Circuit, Tonasket WA
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Sep 10, 2010 - 11:45pm PT
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Rock
Fear
But then
Also love
Senses touching stone
In the space between sky and earth
Living the moment between now and eternity
Awareness expanding to embrace all consciousness
From mountain rock to mosquito
Grasping the oneness
Of it all
The love
Fear
Rock
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Disaster Master
Sport climber
Arcata / Santa Rosa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 20, 2010 - 03:37am PT
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Is poetry dead?
Or is it just nice outside?
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bestill
Trad climber
s. ca.
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Sep 20, 2010 - 11:40am PT
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Ahhh,a woman lying on the beach / as sun diamonds on the water her beauty dazzles my eyes closed / her sweet scent fills me full as hot sand runs between my fingers / a sailboat on starboard tack its taught sail quivers / she rolls over / the boat changes course / a gull spirals down to alight with a splash upon the sea / I reach out and rub oil on her smooth tan back / ahhh
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Sep 20, 2010 - 11:09pm PT
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There are some gems in here. Let's see if I can rise to the occasion:
Many times I've fallen down,
many times I've gotten up
I will keep on doing both,
until my time is up
Well, it rhymes at least. Part of it at least. If you count using the same word a rhyme. But hey, poetry doesn't have to rhyme, right?
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Sep 20, 2010 - 11:18pm PT
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I guess when you're with 'em,
it's all in the rhythm,
that surely will get 'em
as much as the
rhyyyme.
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Disaster Master
Sport climber
Arcata / Santa Rosa, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 20, 2010 - 11:19pm PT
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Bravo Nutjob on the rise and fall poem.
Tomorrow I will Rise 4 pitches.
Good motivation.
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