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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 14, 2013 - 02:49am PT
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The Rocks Are
In a time of glitz and glitter
Giants have become merely litter.
That shouldn't make one very bitter:
It's just Ma Nature, there's nothing fitter.
Smaller This Year
Small rocks from big rocks,
Small stalks and big stalks,
Small mind always knocks:
Guess some folks have mental blocks.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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May 14, 2013 - 03:40am PT
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Seaweed
All along the bent and angling coast
seaweed strands in sunken coves
groping with long bleached arms
from wave to wave
I always chase after them
their darkened strewn and floating forms
rolling like dead bodies
from wave to wave
What seaweed does not hide
its own sorties in unknown depths
submarine worlds where time itself
conceals its broken piece
Under every rubbery leaf
striped in running and ribbed bands
like veins on my father's arm
long long ago
A strand marks the sea's closing line
where I now stand
feet in the blue blackness
hand against the sandy bulb
A strand marks the seaweed
in roped and stringed fragments
at the place their soft crests fall
sharp against the stone
W.T.
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Leggs
Sport climber
Is this a trick question?
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May 14, 2013 - 03:49am PT
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^^ sweet. ^^
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 15, 2013 - 01:43pm PT
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Q & Q & No A
Why is it not "spice" for spouses
if we must say mice not "mouses"?
Why is it the blues not "the blue"
And why is it not "yous" but you?
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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May 18, 2013 - 02:54am PT
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A Little Ways North of Mill Creek
A little ways north of Mill Creek
the beach runs round
in a single wide arcing swath
There the tide stems in segments
fast against the open mouth
of sea and sand and barnacle
There is also a cliff near the stone rising
above the under-base of a million waves
throttling a darkened face
Somewhere out of sight
from prying eyes
the salt water still churns
And churns for a million years
oblivious to the carnage
inflicted on the crumbling mass
It's as if the big bass drum
of agonies from time immemorial
plays its one note dirge
And summons the shelving mist
to curtail the pitiful death
from the eyes of a dumbfounded poet
Who loiters in the wet hiss
like a reporter in search of tragedy
and finding none, returns to home
WT
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Anastasia
climber
Home
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May 18, 2013 - 03:25am PT
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learning to walk
you need to risk standing up
you need to struggle to move
and take that fall
you must get up and lift that clumsy leg
fall again
until you figure it out
let go
and ungracefully move
it's your first step to the greatest freedom
and everyday each of us must do this in all it's forms
we must dare ourselves
be willing to get up
and ungracefully go beyond our greatest limits
to be successful
one must dare to stand up
into the truest form of freedom
one must always know first how to fall
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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May 18, 2013 - 12:34pm PT
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Well done, Anastasia!
Eric
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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May 20, 2013 - 03:09am PT
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The Mountains of My Dreams
The highland Santa Lucia
breaches the bench of earth and sky
with ancient crests framed in
scrub outlines
and open slopes.
It was from that world above
atop the grand and open vistas
where once dreams were fetched
from dark profiles
and deep slumbers
I must have dreamt the unmoving
mist as it gathered near
an unnamed summit
drawing to itself the lighter fragments
of motion and light
It was a mist concealing
a spirit once speaking not in words
but in unfathomable contours ,giving way
to even deeper contours downslope
beyond the oaken ridge.
Was this a language of my
childhood mind as I sought to
wrangle a meaning from this alien
landscape ,so as to make it
my own?
If so, where did I sleep?
how did I enter that magical terrain
how did I know its depth
like I know the
flat of my open hand?
These are the mountains of my dreams
rising in one solitary tone
in consort with a thousand unheard voices
voices that out - sing
even the sea.
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Donny... the OHHH!- Riginal
Sport climber
C:porn
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May 20, 2013 - 12:38pm PT
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Oh stone Arch o' mine
...how you were raped by Potter
...though Dean, not Colonel.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 21, 2013 - 04:08am PT
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Elephant Wreck/1970
I thought I saw an elephent
I could tell you where he went
I'k like to tell you where he died
But then you'd tell me I have lied
That's the truth and I should know
Look for him beneath the flow
Merced River hides his tail
His trunk's still there and that's my tale
--L.E. Naibisco-Phanto
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 21, 2013 - 04:21am PT
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When You Can't Stand the Eyes
Have you ever looked at yurself?
Then you have eyes, I'm assuming, and recognize humanity.
How much bible have you tried on?
If normal, then you ought to be able to hear my little voice booming.
When God said "Thou Shalt Not Kill," how do you take Him to mean that?
Did some educational teacher inform you that it is right not to kill animals, like the kid and the lamb?
That isn't what God meant, you know, about not killing for meat.
Eating meat is no sin where I come from, nor where I am going. It tastes better dead and won't run away.
I was not born in a desert seeing wolves and lions slinking away with my charges in their mouths: my flock, my family's sustenance being taxed by others for their own use. A few, inevitable, and a way of giving back to the Creator, OK, it would be my thanks for continued being; but if I were so foolish as to ignore the food the Creator has given us, I have always wondered, "What would He say?" .
"Fool, so I made thee.
Fool, I shall not smite thee,
For thou art my own foolish pride."
Possible.
I'm no vegetarian; there is a lot else which I am not.
A fool into the bargain with God is one of them.
He lettuce eat meat.
TACO!
--L. Zapitan
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 21, 2013 - 04:39am PT
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Faux Jewel
The moon is a huge baroque pearl
Dripping nacreous swirl
It's really rococo
In fact many say so
Selene, you make my hair curl
For tonight you are no ghostly galleon
But for my delight you are sallying
Forth over a third
Of what you once were
Back when you were full and were dallying
Many a mule packer has watched you
And this old climber on old Bugaboo
You gave us all a fair share
Of your beauty so rare
And I thank you tonight, yes, I do!
If Selene and Mousie got married
Their life would be oh so harried
I'd be out looking for oats
You'd be shining on boats
All our days and our nights till I'm buried
--Mouse
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Anastasia
climber
Home
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May 21, 2013 - 04:39am PT
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The wind blew and took my hat away
I could live without my hat
and without a care or a thought
I stepped into my house
then the silence came and it broke like a lie
and the wind blew and blew
as the windows broke
the wind howling like a train
beating and breaking down walls
I found myself crawling through a collapsing world
reaching the door to get beneath the ground
as if I was already dead
curling up in fear at the bottom of my cellar
and when the silence came again
when I stepped out into the world
my car was gone
my house was gone
I didn't know how to feel
and then I thought of the school
where was my child?
I couldn't live without my child
and in the wind I called her name
my voice howling
and there was a deafening silence
as the wind died
clasping against me
not even the slightest breeze stirred
and there sat my hat
a few feet away
tear streaming down my face
I cared
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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May 21, 2013 - 05:47am PT
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SPECIAL, ANASTASIA!
Here's the best advice for fights and being in a windstorm, too.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Free the poor homeless OK cowboys & cowgirls from their awful disaster, out there where the living is "easier."
I prefer San Jose-type disasters, like the quakes.
Cuz they give me the shakes.
Open artificial lakes.
Chase out all the snakes.
Wake up all the flakes.
All the cars put on their brakes.
End to end to end to end on the bridge intakes.
It's a temporary end to what man "makes."
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Anastasia
climber
Home
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May 25, 2013 - 02:59am PT
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Now that's poetry!
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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May 26, 2013 - 05:47pm PT
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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (Dylan Thomas)
read by Philip Madoc
[Click to View YouTube Video]
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
The great state of advaita
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Nothing Twice
Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.
One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is that a flower of a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to say
Today is always gone tomorrow
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
(Poems New and Collected 1957-1997
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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After Vacation
By George Sterling
Below her now the storming city rolls
The tireless thunder of a sadder sea
Than that between the planet's frozen poles
And she is captive who awhile was free.
Far out across the dusty roofs her gaze
Beholds the turbid vapors jetting forth,
And tow'r and spire unhidden by the haze
Tell where the hungered city reaches north.
So little time ago it was she stood
Where the unhurried sea-wind offered her
The clean, wild fragrance of the cedar wood,
And made the little grasses dip and stir.
But here the sea-wind tells not of the wave,
Smearing the smoke-plumes on the tainted sky;
And lost the blossoms that the summer gave—
The nameless meadow-flowers, aloof and shy.
It is another fairness she must seek,
Here where the cold and stately dungeons soar—
Some hint of what the chiseled granites speak,
Some iron beauty at the world's deep core.
But grant her time a little longer. She
Has yet of memory a vanished day;
Her dreams are of the spaces of the sea,
And snowlike sands about a turquoise bay.
George STerling was a friend of Jack London's and Northern California native. One of our state's best poets, too.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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For Royal and Liz.
Who are approaching a fiftieth anniversary on November 17th, the same date as mine and my own lovely Lizzie's.
Hard Men and Hard Rain
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.--Bob Dylan
Oh, where are you going, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where will you be, my daring young one?
I’m going to Fin Dome to climb with the Rainbows
I’m looking for something that will satisfy a hunger
I’m seeking a power within me that will blow me away
I may not find it till I have been proven worthy
But find it I must and find it I will
If I have to climb every forested hill
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard man’s a coming home.
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been my darling young one?
I’ve been out to Tahquitz where the snow still resides
I’ve been out to the desert where there’s no shade to find
I’ve been to the Valley where glory is waiting
I’ve been to Fort Bliss and done my military duty
I’ve seen the old elephant now I want to climb one
I’ve been skiing and racing and winning some trophies
But it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard way for to live.
Oh, who have you seen, my blue-eyed gun?
Who have you met, my darling old one?
There are Fitschen and Pratt and Frost and Chouinard
There are Royal, Don, Roy, Ray, and good old Frank Hoover
There are Mendenhalls, Sherricks, Wiltses, and Gallwases
There was Mark Powell, Warren Harding, and sweet Liz Burkner
There are countless others which I can’t now remember
And it’s a joy, it’s a joy, it’s a joy,
And it’s a joy, to have led a life and climbs like my own.
--MFM
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