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Hangerlessbolt
Trad climber
Portland, OR
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Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 28, 2006 - 06:59am PT
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A Perfect Summer Night
When all the work days
Blend into a haze
And reality is nowhere near
That's when I remember
In early September
The Josh nights are warm and clear
And I'm not alone
I pick up the phone
and issue an eager proposal
A partner in need
Is a partner indeed
"If your leading I'm at your disposal"
An evening run
Under a setting sun
A burger and some fries
Gear in the pack
Thrown on my back
Watch the full moon rise
Desert floor
Relaxation's door
It's here I feel at home
Long shadowy trees
Cactus at my knees
To the base of the climb we roam
I start the climb
With safety in mind
I check out my harness and knot
Headlamp lights my partner
He know's he's smarter
He lets me lead...(a lot!)
In the first few moves
I focus on my shoes
Fancy footwork on thin face
I clip the first bolt
Pull a bight of rope
Thinking how blessed is this place
Only the moon and bright stars
No people and no cars
Two of us on this dark wall
I get to the crux
My partner wishes me luck
With tensed muscles I fight a fall
I pull all the moves
Thank 5.10 for the shoes
I clip into the bolts with my runner
I take in the slack
Staring down into black
Hard to believe we're at Josh in the summer
From far below
Comes a headlight's dim glow
A lonely growing light
Hanging far above
This place that I love
A perfect summer night
-Hangerlessbolt & Toobigtoclimb
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Nov 28, 2006 - 08:47am PT
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One nut, two nuts,
Red nuts, Blue Nuts!
Three nuts four nuts,
Five nuts, more nuts!
Have you ever done a climb,
On a lark,
After dark,
In the park?
Apoplogies to Dr. Suess, the great american poet.
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feelio Babar
Trad climber
Sneaking up behind you...
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Nov 28, 2006 - 10:33am PT
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I will not cam oh Sam I am,
This passive gear is fine!
I'll save that gear,
till full of fear,
that's when I plug in mine!
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Nov 28, 2006 - 11:08am PT
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Shades of Robert Service, Hangerless and Toobig.
And fun stuff Dirt and Babar.
Thanks!
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KenD
Trad climber
Palo Alto, CA
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Nov 28, 2006 - 12:24pm PT
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A struggle on the cliff face
Tiny figures viewed far below
When you have not yet been up there
Many a regret
But once there and homeward bound
How commonplace it all looks
Cliff face gleams in the moonlight
Mountains are once more mountains
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Nov 28, 2006 - 01:49pm PT
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Verge
Full, quaking and anxious
Of owls
Of hawks
Soaring souls beckon the absolute
Frontiers of abundant enclosures
Amid the sound
Of crashing boulders
A misty sky below
As tears fly skyward.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 13, 2007 - 12:48am PT
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I thought we should prolong this thread. Hopefully there'll be other contributions - tis a season to write poetry, methinks.
dirtineye's entry from the "Woes with Toes" thread today:
Woes with toes and life's not fair,
And doctors often do not care.
So many times I would have dared.
But toes got in my way.
I've looked at feet from both sides now,
and still it seems that still somehow
it's life's illusions I recall,
I really don't know toes at all.
And here's one from EKat, from Crimpie's "A Happy Thread" last summer:
Cross country ski poles
My ropes and my ice ax
Tincture of Benzion
And all of my backpacks
Nuts and hexentrics with bright colored slings
These are a few of my favorite things!
Avalanche beacons
My skins and my skinnies
Klisters and hard wax
And skiin' with Blinny
Takin' a header when snow sticks and clings
These are a few of my favorite things
When the slope breaks
And you're swimmin'
when you're hurtin' bad
Just simply remember your favorite things
And then you won't feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel. . . . so bad!
Anyone else?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 13, 2007 - 01:12am PT
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Here's an excerpt from one that I like, which isn't directly about climbing, but might be inspiring, if a bit bleak:
"Mind must be the stronger, heart the bolder,
courage must be the greater, as our might lessens."
It's from "The Battle of Maldon", one of the first recorded poems in what eventually became English. About events in 991 - see http://faculty.uca.edu/~jona/texts/maldon.htm for a full translation.
This could be something fun for winter nights - I have ideas.
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oldtopangalizard
Social climber
ca
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Jan 13, 2007 - 02:14am PT
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I once knew a climber named Smitty
Who tied all his knots rather shitty
One day on the wall
He cried in a fall
Oh sh#t my knot slipped, what a pity
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Jan 13, 2007 - 02:23am PT
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"Dammit Schief, I thought you brought the hardwear"
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Trusty Rusty
Social climber
Tahoe area
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Jan 13, 2007 - 02:28am PT
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I once knew a climber named McNaught
who tied an insecure butterfly knot
he screamed as he fell
a magnificent yell:
"My God I'll be hardly a spot"
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ec
climber
ca
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Jan 13, 2007 - 05:39am PT
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Please forgive any familiarity to any previous lyrics...
Just a Saturday climb, so special,
'Got cams of blue and gold,
Ain't good for nothin'...
Run out sixty-feet on the rope...
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Jan 13, 2007 - 09:57am PT
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Onward, onward, half a pitch onward,
Up onto the climb o death went the 6 morons.
Ours is not to reason why,
Ours is but to climb and die.
I'm too lazy to drag out the whole thing but there's a start.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jan 13, 2007 - 10:24am PT
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Genuine poetry is too hard to do unless you're a specialist. Why not take the tact of the recent "Comedy Issue" of Poetry Magazine. One gem started: "The fish were jumping in the f*#king pond."
That's an angle I think we can work with . . .
JL
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Lee
Mountain climber
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Jan 13, 2007 - 03:11pm PT
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Now and Never
Across the starry, windswept sky,
The palest hues of dawn creep by,
Through crunch of snow and huff of breath,
The omnipresent smite of death,
From craggy peaks so sharp and near,
Regales the thinning atmosphere,
With promise of a view so fine,
I must ascend and make it mine.
Now far below I'll spy my camp,
Ajust my boots and don my lamp,
Down endless slopes I'll lightly prance,
Yet pausing turn a backwards glance,
To marvel at the summit gained,
Now grimly cold and twilight stained,
And dream of other peaks I've climbed,
If only- ah, I had the time.
Written after an extended trip to the Sierra's Palisades
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David Nelson
climber
San Francisco
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Jan 13, 2007 - 03:27pm PT
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I can't believe that no one complimented Karl on his poem! Karl, that was killer! Laughed a ton.
This poem is not climbing related, but written by me and offered to any of the ST crowd who like strong coffee:
Cowboy Coffee (just click link below)
http://www.davidlnelson.md/cowboy_coffee.htm
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 13, 2007 - 03:30pm PT
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I suggest that any poetry about climbing, or that is climbing-related, find a home on this thread. Not just poems by climbers.
Wilfrid Noyce, an accomplished British climber in the 1950s, was something of a poet and intellectual. He was on the 1953 Everest expedition, and wrote what was then the highest poem ever written. (Perhaps it still is? Not counting astro-poets, anyway.) It was written at about 7,800 metres, and is titled "The South Col".
"Great hill above
And cloud below;
Reckless of love
The fast winds blow.
But all between
Is space beyond dead;
Spirits unseen
Here make their bed
In blackened rock-rift
And ice rubbed bare,
Crusted snow-drift
That blizzards tear.
Long ago
These were the same,
Never small, never slow,
Never soft, never tame.
What are men here?
What have they done?
A heap of rags here,
Yellow and brown."
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jan 13, 2007 - 10:45pm PT
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By former Rainier Chief Ranger, Clark Schurman(1939). Thanks to Dee Moliner for keeping this jewel alive.
Last campfires never die,
And you and I on separate ways to Life’s December,
Will dream by this last fire,
And have This Mountain to remember.
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climbingjones
Trad climber
grass valley,ca
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Jan 13, 2007 - 10:52pm PT
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Here is my feeble attempt at a climbing haiku:
Oh what is climbing? Dont know, dont care just climb it
Crank hard, then drink beer
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Wade Icey
Social climber
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Jan 14, 2007 - 12:27am PT
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Let us go then, you and I,
When the Captain is spread out against the sky
Like a dirtbagger etherized upon a deli table
Let us go, through certain half-deserted sites,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night dorm rooms
And lodge restaurants with potato skins
trails that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask,
" How hard is it? ''
Let us go and f*#king send it.
In the mountain room the women come and go
Talking of Bridwell, Lois and Largo.
-stelliot
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MisterE
Trad climber
My Inner Nut
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Bump
Talking Rock In The Tetons
Three days out
in the wilderness -
the soreness of heavy pack,
6-hour approach
just a vague discomfort.
Perched camp in afternoon,
overlooking the Grand Teton
Clouds roll by and
wander I
up the canyon behind,
itching for climbing
amid endless rock.
Cave below huge boulder
leads to looking
for a way
to summit -
fingers, mind longing now
for ascent.
Finding five move sequence
on North side -
fifteen feet of joy
over death landing
draws a gasp.
Roughly, tenuously
grasping hand-holds to start:
next hold so close
hours from help
Walking slowly away
happy to just find
potential
for joyous movement,
connected sequence.
Then I feel a call to my spirit
ringing in my head, heart:
this rock wants
to be climbed.
A strong pull
from this house-sized
granitic, says:
“Do the first move”
A longing as strong
as mine
turning around
stunned, in trance
I return
grasp the ledges again
Feels right this time
the landing,
not so fearsome.
Just one move,
all hands and feet
clinging
to Talking Boulder...happy!
then I am off,
soft cat drop to safety.
Laughing, singing
each step on rock
now a part of me
back to camp.
--Erik Wolfe
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Porkchop_express
Trad climber
thats what she said...
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I was in kind of a weird mood when I wrote this.
drawn in lines of sand,
this purgatory rises from the depths of-
kept from flight and bound
this possibility settles in the depths of-
from the neck up, confined
buried in the depths of-
this plan, upheld through storms of rationale
clutched in the depths of-
rivers flowing backwards through the desert
tracing glaciers through the sand
canyons where the mountain washed away
and now they stand in wonder
and now they stare and whisper
and now there comes another
closer, closer, this one's a jumper
falling and rising have become the same
where only depths can speak
to tell their tale.
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
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Perhaps not climbing, but makes me think of it:
Carmel Point
by Robinson Jeffers
The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of surburban houses-
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.
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roy
Social climber
New Zealand -> Santa Barbara
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This gem (part of a song) by the late great Tom Patey...
"Live it up, fill your cup, drown your sorrow
And sow your wild oats while ye may
For the toothless old tykes of tomorrow
Were the Tigers of Yesterday"
Cheers, Roy
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville
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It's like a cinder in a raging fire
blazing towards a speedy death
no direction, no desire
Pull me closer to the flame
The night air is cold and sucks my breath
My burning spirit flares it's strength
Soon extinguished, the time is near
I glow with wonder, I travel free
no more worry, no more fear
I let it go, it's easy now
My cooler being allows me time
to travel unseen by hurtful eyes
I trust the sky to lead me from
the ways I've known for far too long
I drift alone and free at last
To find new treasures
To find new paths...
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Here in Katmandu
We have climbed the mountain.
There's nothing more to do.
It is terrible to come down
To the valley
Where, amidst many flowers,
One thinks of snow,
As formerly, amidst snow,
Climbing the mountain,
One thought of flowers,
Tremulous, ruddy with dew,
In the valley.
One caught their scent coming down.
It is difficult to adjust, once down,
To the absense of snow.
Clear days, from the valley,
One looks up at the mountain.
What else is there to do?
Prayer wheels, flowers!
Let the flowers
Fade, the prayer wheels run down.
What have they to do
With us who have stood atop the snow
Atop the mountain,
Flags seen from the valley?
It might be possible to live in the valley,
To bury oneself among flowers,
If one could forget the mountain,
How, never once looking down,
Stiff, blinded with snow,
One knew what to do.
Meanwhile it is not easy here in Katmandu,
Especially when to the valley
That wind which means snow
Elsewhere, but here means flowers,
Comes down,
As soon it must, from the mountain.
Donald Justice
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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Monument Valley
Maybe the mind works like centuries of erosion,
The runoffs and channels mostly bone-dry and then flooded
With a wall of water out of the desert, itself absorbed
Almost instantly into the cracked ground and leaving
Only a thin layer of fine sludge like a train of thought.
Over time the larger formations appear, personality
And prejudice, a manner of speaking, assuming all sorts
Of fantastic shapes, climbing into the atmosphere
And achieving a shimmering air of grandeur and intent.
Of course, much is washed away that these may remain,
And the landscape of youth is ravaged beneath us.
Whatever is extraneous, or delicate, or less than tenacious,
Has less chance than a pack rat in the progress of ages,
Less chance than our own acts and inmost reflections
Stand in a lifetime of vanishing memories.
And so we are left with monuments, resembling so much,
To soften the harsh light into shadows and their hues,
To make something like beauty out of such earth.
George Bradley
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Now and Never
Across the starry, windswept sky,
The palest hues of dawn creep by,
Through crunch of snow and huff of breath,
The omnipresent smite of death,
From craggy peaks so sharp and near,
Regales the thinning atmosphere,
With promise of a view so fine,
I must ascend and make it mine.
Now far below I'll spy my camp,
Ajust my boots and don my lamp,
Down endless slopes I'll lightly prance,
Yet pausing turn a backwards glance,
To marvel at the summit gained,
Now grimly cold and twilight stained,
And dream of other peaks I've climbed,
If only- ah, I had the time.
Written after an extended trip to the Sierra's Palisades
By "Lee"
That's whooping Robert Service at his own game.
JL
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Too steep a slope
There is no hope
So pull the rope
And smoke some dope
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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nice one, john. i'm a huge robert service fan, and it went down well.
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bvb
Social climber
flagstaff arizona
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The Face
Everything kisses and burns.
There is light on the face
in blistering night, so cold
you could snap
but such wind and sweat you hang on
to the face, to ice and sharp stone.
In the night your face blisters
with cold. And everything burns,
everything kisses. You bend to the face
made of stone and you're cold,
beyond reach and you're glad:
it's you who lights the face.
There is no other place
you'd rather be.
-- e.t., 1981.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Wow, bvb.....get a sense perhaps of where you come from. Moving words that let you send and soar. Peace Bro, Lynnie
Such great Threads in this the Taco World...I am so new still never knew this Great One even existed.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Dec 19, 2016 - 10:23am PT
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Vertigno.
Down words abound
Around ground zero heroes.
Cross words are rare
Between this mighty pair.
"Let's climb this boulder."
"I'll give you a shoulder."
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chainsaw
Trad climber
CA
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Dec 19, 2016 - 03:05pm PT
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Haiku sent to USAC begging them to let adults who paid for the season to climb at Divisionals.
Please let us fools climb.
Terrestrial sufferers,
The dirt burns our feet.
Paid my $50. Took second place, USAC gave no medal. Those guys are a money grubbing con.
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Bushman
climber
The state of quantum flux
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Dec 19, 2016 - 07:06pm PT
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Quietus on Mars
She had asked him to climb that day
Down in the Valles Marineris
It was well he was a Scorpio
For he knew she was an Aries
And the route was her new project
But he was otherwise enchanted
By her beautiful long black hair
Though she took it all for granite
She never saw his true feelings
And he never saw his fate
The rock fall was unexpected
Still, she named the new climb Nate
-bushman
12/19/2043
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Apr 18, 2017 - 06:39pm PT
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Spring Break 1970
In the Ditch Incomparable the springs are broken no longer
Their flows are increased and daily grow stronger
They gush newly-charged from the rains and the snows
The river thus is engorged by these flows
In bunches spring breakers roll into the camp
Which is warming up some but still a bit damp
In twos and threes and as colorful as flowers
They’ll be gone now out climbing for several hours
Studying topos today and not cramming for a test
They be jamming in cracks now and give it they best
It was a long hard winter spent in academe
When camping and climbing was but a dream
I watch and recall from a great distance
How my pal and I learned to do this dance
A party of two on a pinnacle named for a Kat
A lone RURP got placed and that was that
A trio of loonies on the Higher Spire
We became new “hardmen for hire”
A few graceful moves on some slabby Northside routes
Hard to accomplish wearing Robbins Blue Boots
I watched from the rim as the Lost Arrow was done
By Jeff and Dillis Millis who had little fun
(Dancing to the Rope Drag Blues)
Spring break when you’re young is just so darn cool
For one may learn things they don’t teach in school
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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The Old Hill Climber
by GW Young
I have not lost the magic of long days:
I live them, dream them still.
Still I am master of the starry ways,
and freeman of the hill.
Shattered my glass, ere half the sands had run,—
I hold the heights, I hold the heights I won.
Mine still the hope that hailed me from each height,
mine the unresting flame.
With dreams I charmed each doing to delight;
I charm my rest the same.
Severed my skein, ere half the strands were spun,—
I keep the dreams, I keep the dreams I won.
What if I live no more those kingly days?
their night sleeps with me still.
I dream my feet upon the starry ways;
my heart rests in the hill.
I may not grudge the little left undone;
I hold the heights, I keep the dreams I won.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Dec 16, 2018 - 06:49am PT
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RIPCC
Cosmic died and went to heaven.
Peter asked "You climb 5.7?"
Well, he looked old Peter in the eye, he did,
And he said, "You betcha. Who ya tryin ta kid?"
"I've climbed more miles than anyone here.
I have climbed in the desert without no beer.
I can climb this gate, if you don't mind."
Old Peter just grinned, "Don't blown yer mind."
"I quiz all the climbers who pass this way
And I love it when y'all begin to spray.
There's no need to climb the Pearly Gates.
Your seat at the campfire for you waits."
--Mouse from Merdead
"But he's not dead, he winked 'is bloomin' eye."--Rhymy the Limey
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