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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Aug 21, 2016 - 10:35am PT
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The Island of Lost Horizons
Part 1
The Ship
As notice from my master came
The cloud cast afternoon burned clear
To lively sunset auburn haired
Much like her scratchy mane the dear
So drunk with pungent song I sang
To the pesky girl I wooed and bed
Alas my situation lost
Left me no choice and so I fled
The pastor's step on our day for to wed
A deckhands ad answered in a clutch
And we set sail on waters late
The month of August laden such
The keel on harbors bottom scraped
And hoped my captains fate was less
In kind adrift and rudderless
Or muddled like my fettered list
Escaped from I was wedded bliss
But 'fore my labors washed all this
The captains wrinkled grayish brow
O'er dark encircled eyes that frowned
With worrisome forbodence fell
To scan horizons then cast down
Through bow timbers to blackened deep
His enigmatic reputation kept
By first mate and by lock and key
Those voyages that he had seen
So buried we our worries the more
For all world a 'bound by destiny
Week on week we crested wave
Southward to as weathers calmed
And waters warm and open seas
As balmy doldrums soon embalmed
Our spirits fell on duties cursed
A deathly purgative unwarned
Less appetite left me replete
And darkened thoughts left me forlorn
On oceans wide horizon scorned
On murmured sounds of mutiny
No sharpened knives below the deck
A captain's only order stood
Between the noose and broken neck
Then spirits rose a cry to men
When west winds pressed the sails to mast
The Ivory coast appeared to east
The waves they rose and fell at last
Off Dragon's tails that never ceased
'Round Horn we pushed to India
By monster gales and seas festooned
By shoals and reefs a lurking there
To shipwreck and leave us marooned
A 'drowned and swept by Neptune's tides
To a mirthless ocean bottom tomb
And some were lost swept overboard
By sleeper waves that settled score
Left a crew survived by those much more
Now dangerous than those before
On latitudes off course bereft
Unsettled weather settled soon
Our compass course so stigmatized
We'd navigate by sun and moon
Much further south we drifted as
Through fog we saw only the ghosts
Of long lost ships and long dead crews
And heard the cries out in the mists
Of long lost Captain Darius
Whose soul was traded once for gold
Descending he to satin's lair
As olden sailor's legends told
The third day on those souther'd seas
The Indian Ocean sat like pond
No winds to tell or lift the sails
To blow the fog or stir a breeze
The captain broke out with the rum
A ration each man's fear to quell
For soon we smelled a ghastly smell
Like burning hair on animal hide
Or witch's porridge straight from hell
Which stirred us primally inside
The winds ne'er came for o'er a week
With sunken eyes and slouching gait
No words were said we did not speak
The rum long gone our nerves a wreck
A feverish red inflamed our eyes
When first came blood to black of night
The watch cried out a man on deck
His throat was sliced his face was white
The captain ordered all to top
First mates face was clenched and drawn
His pistol held and hammer cocked
He stood like that until the dawn
Each night it came each morning sun
Dispatched we were now one by one
Those of us the specter sought
In sport in form or gruesome fun
To rid the seas and keep to thee
Our cargo and our vessel for
A paltry prize for what he'd done?
Afore each dawn there came the scream
Another murdered there was lain
At midship deck for all to see
We once were forty but now fifteen
I could not wait 'till next was me
I could not sleep except by day
And cowardice kept me from flight
While hiding in a life boat passed
In trembling fear another night
And dreamed of Bess Cornelius
My near betrothed with skin of white
Her gentle smile and eyes of green
Reproached me for my treachery
I looked away but still her voice
And auburn hair encircled me
And called my name not once but thrice
With baleful moans and dreadful cries
I startled then awake to see
With flames all 'round I realized
'Twas trapped with no way clear to me
And saw no exit to my plight
As flames were there at every turn
I ran back t'wards a life boat then
A flash of pain and blackness came
I would not see our ship again
The good ship sinking as it burned
A timber'd struck me o'er the head
And when with pounding headache woke
In the only lifeboat left afloat
My former hideaway and bed
The sky was dark and the sea was black
'Till morning clouds descended
On the waters where my lonely craft
Was cloaked by fog a 'never ending
For days on end I drifted there
The dew it never quenched my thirst
No food to quell my hunger fast
With an old tarpaulin spread out where
The blistered skin and pulpy hands
I noticed not and did not care
And all my ceaseless shivering
Wore me out 'till I slept fair
As waves picked up and the wind did blow
Where I should drift I could not know
Part 2
Captain Darius
My boat made land on a blackened shore
As the tide pushed up and my feet dug in
To a coarse volcanic gravelly sand
Like one I'd never seen a'fore
Beyond all that I kept no score
For the fog had thickened all about
But my hunger ached to sound once more
So imprudently I began to shout
And thought I heard voices of men
But my eyes were weary and my ears did ring
And I stumbled into a jungle deep
Where tree vines hung to dampened ground
Knowing not what crawled or creeped
But still heard distant melodies
As I slept to rest my pulped feet
(To be continued)
-bushman
08/21/2016
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Aug 21, 2016 - 04:08pm PT
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There was an Old Man
Late one night
I heard a strange noise
So I went outside
And there was an old man
Standing by the cedar tree
He had a bald head
And a stubbly beard
All stooped and limping
Just like me
He came towards me
I raised my arm
To warn him off
But I saw something
Something moved
In the field beyond
Way out by the pepper tree
A strange glow of colors
Coruscating
A wormhole opened
Bright and green
Right out of Star Trek
Like I had seen
The old man whispered
"Don't go near
You see I once
Was from around here"
As I stood trembling in fear
He told me then
He'd worked for years
As doctor on a merchant ship
One long winter ocean voyage
They spied a man
On an iceberg there
And attempted a rescue
As a storm did rage
In the North Atlantic on that day
Then the old man said
The iceberg man
Was clearly dead
His body it was frozen stiff
Encrusted with ice
He'd waited too long
But inside his tent
Was a time machine
With it's motor turned on
The old man continued
To tell his story
That's when he said
That's when he fell
Through a wormhole there
And found an old man
Way down at the other end
Then the old man said
That it was him
I told the old man
To stop right there
That I didn't believe him
About what he'd seen
And I did not care
He smiled and turned
And disappeared
In the worm hole by
My pepper tree there
Now I've grown older
And my memory fails
Can't recall my aches or ails
Or if I've gone through
A time machine
Was I the iceberg man
Or the wormhole man?
Though there was an old man
It matters not that I can tell
-bushman
08/21/2016
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 27, 2016 - 05:02pm PT
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Seasoning
There is a time in life's late seasons
To drop excuses and find reasons
To be performing daily feasance
For your dogs.
They love your butt to death
And your crotch smells like Lab breath
And it will until your death
Long time hence.
So don't be too blue and mopin'
Cuz it's nice and wide and open
And your Labs will find there's no pen
O'er the fence.
So keep on sackin' dog poo
The odor so becomes you
Here come the Labs to smell you
And your scents.
--Dog R. Ell
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Oh, An Ode
As I drove down the highway bound for Mexico,
Down to the land of the coyote and the crow,
I slammed on my brakes and almost hit a doe,
Then ran off the road where the weeds always grow,
Down through the tulies as the wind started to blow,
And that's when I saw how the sky was aglow,
When the earth shrank to nothing I had to say, "Whoa!"
I stepped out of my car because I didn't know,
I'd be lost in a cosmic archipelago,
I started to pass out when I heard a banjo,
But the worst of my fears was acute vertigo,
So I reached in my pocket real nice and slow,
I pulled out some oxygen aerosol, yo,
It comes in a pump or a spray, hello?
As that backwoods banjo strummed an adagio,
Desperately in need of some fresh h2o,
As I glanced at the moon and it's warm afterglow,
The leer she returned was most un-apropos,
But my pinkish complexion was as blue as my toe,
So I climbed in my car as it started to snow,
The snow in deep space was a dark indigo,
And as cold as the depths of the oceans below,
On an earth now gone missing into hyperspace, Joe,
So such was my quandary in space, Eskimo,
With no means for my safety or a quid pro quo,
No means to survive or a clear paseo,
But I would not relinquish and cried, "Tallyho!"
Then lapsed into deep unconsciousness, oh!
Now I could argue but I'm no Cicero,
Going from bad to worse in a heartbeat, such woe,
But much like the sad and forlorn weeping willow,
Or the puddle of drool that seeps into your pillow,
I was worse off today than I might be tomorrow,
With no future to beg, or to steal, or to borrow,
I had sealed my own fate when I'd stepped in that auto,
Now a castaway, unconscious, adrift in a grotto,
As the dueling banjos quickened pace to allegro,
My dreamscape swirled to a maelstrom staccato,
Then I woke soaked in sweat from my chronic lumbago,
And wished I'd not eaten the meat and potato,
Should've had only salad with the spinach and tomato,
So an ode to an 'Oh!' is no grand manifesto,
With some lofty philosophy to be spoken with gusto,
But a tribute to an 'Oh' without bold braggadocio,
Just a simple, "Oh, now where did the time go?"
-bushman
09/03/2016
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Alpine World #2
The Obelisk
On horizons before yesterday
Transported back in time
To the base of an ancient obelisk
Two climbers offloaded their gear
From the shuttle below a glacier
Two hundred sixty million years ago
When the Karoo Ice Age finally receded
Crackman sized up the route
He could scarcely believe his laser eye
With no portent of the danger
The bargain struck yet not conceded
The splitter ran straight from the bergschrund
To the top of the northwest buttress
Ice crystals thinly plastered the rock face
Here and there
For fifteen thousand feet
But little snow appeared on the ledges
And the crack looked free of ice
Crackman brewed hot soup
As Ropedroid sorted their gear
And hung her ledge from a nearby boulder
The climbers tended to their duties
As they spied a rare carcass
Picked clean by birds and lice
At dawn Crackman was in rare form
And Ropedroid's bionic arm
Shot bolts without ever seizing
Her pneumatic piston power source
It put a sparkle in her turquoise eyes
And they climbed forty pitches before dusk
Next day the stormy skyline
Foreboding to the west
Compelled them to climb much faster
But an ice choked chimney blocked their exit
From the buttress to the summit ridge
Ropedroid kicked her clawboots into overdrive
And led through icicles which overhung
For two rope lengths as they continued on
From nightfall into dawn
At the summit they took the south ridge
The good weather now was gone
Socked into their snow cave
The whiteout blizzard howled
As shuttle crews would not respond
With atmospheric disturbance
Playing havoc on their nerves
As well the signal from their phone
The rations spent and fuel gone
Crackman and Ropedroid spooned for heat
A love affair was born
With no calories for consummation
Two weeks went by since they had gone
The shuttle saw the woman first
His arms waved also on the second fly by
Plucked off the the southern ridge alive
They'd both lost thirty pounds or more
The second ascent party had less luck
But that's another story, son
-bushman
125,000,000 BC
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Dream-E-state?
Witness to the Black Plague, 1347-1350, it took half of civilization
Leaving the Dark ages. In its wake ,
dream estate behind earth and mortar walls
Safe from marauding hoards beatified. decorated with Topiary 'nd stone, some that were entwined
together Pontoon boats made contemporary moats ineffective
Not long past the age of moats, every one became infected
Rock Gnome, glade of Diabase, in the year of our lord 1358
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Bushman rackin' 'em up and clearing the table
Can't tell if it's a poem or if it's a fable
I can't bear it.
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oldguy
climber
Bronx, NY
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ENTROPY 2
The northwest face of Half Dome is sheer, seemingly
smooth, cut by a geologic knife like a ball
of cheese. But a closer look, as if through
a microscope, reveals ledges and cracks,
a finer structure sculpted by weather and time.
Fifteen hundred feet from the ground I found
a large flake, several feet thick, over a hundred
high. (It can be seen in an Adams photograph.)
My back against the wall, my feet pressing
the flake, I inched up. The flake's edge hung
out to the right like a curtain in the wings.
Half way up, sweating, I stopped to look
through a four-inch gap splitting the flake
like a cookie, to look at the valley
a mile down. They called it Psyche Flake.
It gave me pause, then I kept climbing,
carefully, my feet pushing just enough
to hold. At the top and to the left,
where the flake joined the wall, the accumulated
rocks shifted as I sought firm ground.
One winter, a few years later, the whole thing came off.
Joe Fitschen
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Sep 11, 2016 - 10:57am PT
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(With edits)
Klutz Foot
High upon the ridge top
The climber walks alone
His partner has gone ahead
After a long and grueling climb
He works his way down the descent
Jaded by worldly troubles
He's introspect
And trouble free
For the moment by
Exploits on high
Innocent as to what might be
As often we all are
He places feet down between
The boulders and the scrub oak
Between roots
To find the climbers path
And like mountain goats
With measured leaps
But as though each step
Might be his last
With pleasure
And gratitude
He spies the rap route anchors
There
Lowering himself to clip in
With his pack
From anchor point to anchor point
The water ran out long ago
Exhaustion shows upon his brow
As sweat still comes to neck and wrists
He works the kinks
Untwists the twists
And pulls the ropes from the last rappel
With chafed
And grimy hands
The loose rocks in the gully shift
Under every step until
He links together paths on down
But with every pounding footfall
His socks have failed
Where friction's worn
As blisters form
With the familiar burn
A thousand feet or more
In elevation left to go
Back to the established trails
And home
There waiting he sees the sight of gear
His partner splayed across a stone
An unattractive site
This weary pair
On gentler ground now
Though laden as they walk along
They're feeling lighter still
And see their car
Just down this hill
Cold beverages and showers compel
The one misstep
-bushman
09/11/2016
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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The other day I was getting ready to post this.
I accidentally deleted the entire poem and had to
remember and rewrite it in it's entirety.
It came out much different than the original,
oh well, such is life.
The Guidebook
The route is most impossible
Though common it's still unknown
For both mortals and demigods
Where the eagle's have not yet flown
Just north of Babylon
Take a left near the old brothel
From the base of a fiery lake
Take the pillar of the apostle
And the guidebook said
To young Wilbur Sands
Climb for a hundred pitches
With your feet and with your hands
Though it took all month
The guidebook was non de script
Except for the divorce
And the broken hip
And atop the soaring pillar
A mighty headwall loomed
The cracks were all rotten
And prevalent with doom
But the guidebook said
To find a good woman
Who won't mention the wife
T'was late advice for Wilbur then
So he cast off probing weaknesses
As insipid as his own
When the rains began in earnest
He thought that he would drown
On what tears the gods shed freely
Wilbur might've taken the plunge
Off route and lost among the clouds
With only demons to expunge
Flickering it's last the headlamp bulb
Illuminated a single theme
"Exit by way of rivets
Up a dike of serpentine"
The lonely hammock swayed
Hanging off a row of pins
Engulfed by storm and clouds
On a climb that had no end
Wilbur's socked in bivouac
A long and lonely plight
Day on day
And night on night
Lifted morning of the fifth day
Last he was seen on the summit ridge
On the knife edged powdery white
With shouldered pack high on a ledge
The guidebook was never clear
Alas crystal realm negotiations
Oft times they go awry
As do earthly expectations
From beneath our clouded respite
We might find the safety of a home
In whatever warm hearth finds us
Or on high where we should ever roam
This strange magic allure
So desolate and replete
On such totems we rely on
With parched lips and wet feet
The guidebook never tells us
Which route we might be on
But we're still up there somewhere
Corporeal or eidolon
Just north of Babylon
Take a left near the old brothel
From the base of a fiery lake
Take the pillar of the apostle
One hundred pitches give or take
Then you're in it for the long haul
That's when the true climbing begins
Between the tempest and the lull
The doorbell rang
Just once once that day
Wilbur's son answered
In his way
A worn and weathered
Package came
With a guidebook that bore
His father's name
-Tim Sorenson
09/30/2016
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Loyd
Big Wall climber
Roseburg, OR
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Yosemite
This sir, surely is the gateway to my heaven.
The Valley of light, waterfalls, and hard granite walls,
Second unto none other.
El Cap, the master. Half Dome, the mother.
I, her son, her mate, my master.
Higher Rock, my elder brother is.
Bold and strong, stand he tall.
Middle Rock, my sister is, beauty incomparable has she,
Facing north while setting sun slides gently towards west.
Oh, to sit upon my younger brother’s shoulder, Lower Cathedral,
and see the first rays of morning light touch my master’s brow.
To quote a friend is, “To be amazed.”
Born to the rock and life on a vertical wall.
To death, this life I chose to live, and would have none other.
Loyd Price
November 21 1966
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Hey Loyd! Delighted to see you on the Taco!! Good stuff!
Wayne
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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The Falcon's Call
The falcon told me where to go
Where he would lead I did not know
Over hill and yonder dell
I followed him there without fail
The falcon told me what to do
And if you heard you'd follow too
In sacred words he led me where
I stood to say a silent prayer
The falcon circled in the sky
Over this soul I knew not why
I was not dying that I knew
But I let him show me what to do
Of what he spoke I could not say
In language of the birds that day
His message was in wing-ed sign
Of serendipitous design
The falcon said come follow me
A peregrine of rapt beauty
He mesmerized me with a spell
To believe that I could fly as well
The falcon signaled me to go
To follow with my heart and soul
With losses born until I wept
My freedoms exercised and kept
The falcon spoke then flew away
To leave me 'till another day
That I might hold and should revere
The raptors grace to me so dear
The falcon was a harbinger
Of hidden destinies stranger
Than death as now a welcome friend
Ushering mercifully to the end
But the falcon warned and cried aloud
To the stay alert beware the shroud
It was not now my time to die
He said this then I know not why
The falcon spoke to me by name
You might consider this insane
But had you seen him on that day
Would you have heard what he did say?
The falcon lives here on this earth
And shares with us our place of birth
From ancient times until beyond
Our spirits share a sacred bond
The falcon calls for those who hear
For due respect and reverent fear
And a zephyr to alight upon
With a lonesome cry and mournful song
-bushman
10/01/2016
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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The Sovereignty of the Self
Winding along I ask
Can a person be an island
Unto themselves
Solitary, introspect?
Is it dangerous ground?
Like the bag man
Or bag lady
Rattling off the day to day
Mundane conversations...
Whatever is in the mind out loud
"I can't, yes you can,
I'm not schizophrenic,
Oh yes, you are!"
Troubling to say
In the least
So how else would we survive
Being cast away?
Or trapped in a coal mine
If we couldn't escape?
Being faced with our thoughts
And nobody else's
For what would seem like an eternity
Where the right hand mimics the right hand
And the left hand mimics the left
-bushman
10/06/2016
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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I'm also delighted to see your poem, Loyd.
Welcome to the poet's camp.
Up There
Wishin' I was fishin' in Cascades
Instead of watchin' the parades
Of autos sneakin' in to my private paradise.
It's fine up there on Sickle,
Where I wished I had a pickle,
To accent the taste of my sardines.
It's just so long ago
That I don't really know
When I've had more fun.
It's hard to think that I climbed that
When I was a young ledge rat
Freezing in the shadows and sweating in the sun.
MFM/10-07-16
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Roses are red
People suck
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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^^^
Apt
I'm nominating flip flop for a Pulitzer.
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Wow - things just keep getting better!
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Olav H. Hauge
There are similarities between his relationship to nature and his relationship to folk poetry and other types of folklore, Old Norse and Western tradition, classical Chinese poetry and Japanese Haikus, as well as Eastern religion: primarily Zen Buddhism. Hauge evinces an immediate empathy with these traditions. He seems to speak directly with and with familiarity about Acestes (from the Aeneid); figures from the classical Chinese era; and characters from early Nordic tradition, such as Ogmund of Spånheim (from The Saga of Håkon Håkonsson), Leif Eiriksson and others. Such poems are also often meta-texts, such as “I have three Poems”. It tells of Emily Dickinson who wrote so many poems, but published hardly any: “she just cut open a packet of tea / and wrote another one.” This is how poems should be, they should ”…smell of tea. / Or of raw earth and freshly split wood.”
I Stop below the Old Oak on a Rainy Day
My own translation
It’s not only the rain
that makes me stop
under the old oak
by the road. It’s
safe under the wide
crown, it must be
old friendship that lead
the old oak and me to stand there
in silence, listening to the rain
dripping on the leaves, looking out
at the grey day,
waiting, understanding.
The world is old, we think,
both getting older.
Today I don’t stand here dry,
the leaves have started to fall,
there is a sour smell in the
moist air, I feel
the drops through my hair.
Olav H. Hauge
It's the Dream
Translated by Robin Fulton
It's the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen,
that it must happen –
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the mountains will open
that springs will gush –
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn't know was there.
Olav H. Hauge
It's the Dream: The poetry of Olav H. Hauge: http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=PoemArticle&PoemArticleID=78
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