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ryn Mar 2015
my whispers,
they float over the currents
braving the undulating waves in our overture...
around their necks, hung time-worn pendants

whispers...
struggling to convey my sentence
like wreaths adrift perhaps with hope
like a requiem filled perhaps with remorseful penance
but more like weakened footholds on a slippery *****...

this dream...
only spoke grandly of sprawling blackness
where nothing did gleam
only thoughts heavy but...
oddly weightless

except for...
a repertoire of transgressions...
raucous and obnoxious
mischievous taunts that pull me back
caging me,
enslaving me,
smothering me senseless

that was my consciousness
where second chances exist...
in faint sporadic eruptions
through the heavy curtains of uncertainty's mist

finally awakened by hastened breaths
heavy and laboured
as like previous temporary deaths

I could hear my heart
thumping...
beating...
fighting...
to set its beats apart

breathe deep...
allow the new day's air sink in
rise fully from sleep
wake up
and...
let today begin
Based on a dream.
Zero the Lyric Feb 2013
Galaxies, solar satellites, the very Earth and its plates.
Whatever matter spins the reality, each one rotates.
Every unique universe growing its own ebb and flow,
Same as an ocean shall pummel shores then pull undertow.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Backwater cementing a new variant of tributary,
Friends become fish in this river of machinery.
The roiling rubber current proves to combust with currency.
Success succumbs to numbers as the economist counts me.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Gingko trees employed rats until society's reaction
Assimilated this lineage and reset its traction.
A different dispersal mechanism does not merit lament,
The managed are mute within the worker's woeful testament.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Sometimes a quest of faith begets a set from a cartomancer,
What good would it do to bribe the tarot and fake her answer?
For doctrine to deprive a man of god's hero in himself,
To trial and tribute his death to ascend on our caste shelf.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Your cards at hand, as is any fact of fortune, are from you.
All around are landmarks to map your light, vibration, and hue.
A presence is an action amongst quintessential stage props,
Weathered roles rehearse their sonorous loves watching ripples drop.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Turbid fury has no footholds on the great movement in your mind,
Gears that we hear were once a pursuit to prosper as mankind.
To disarm the victim's rights and loosen all nooses may seem odd,
Yet Devil deviates design and is forgiven by God.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Cities yearn to scrape skies built on products at the world's splendor.
Though trinkets become trite as we glorify a greedy vendor.
How could one commend such a clear farce for the multitude?
Selling milk to children's bones while our livestock store false fortitude.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Lifespans expand within this ****** twilight of barbarism.
History obscures so we light turned pages with euphemism.
Often forgotten is that our memory is amorphous,
Generating our boldest fears and cheers to those beyond us.
When its the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Pessimism or optimism; are not rivals of ones structure
Secular submission denies despair's innate rupture
It is built by the hopeful to share love after given grace
To construct a profound unity above pride's titled race
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

We are taught to worry for unruly folk until weary.
Doctors like leaders treat symptoms not seeing sickness clearly.
They stress the distressed to disseminate imminent spines,
Shattering that last vestige of a will searching between lines.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

The commandments should have demanded there always be one more,
As truth evolves in jollies or follies, being rich or poor.
Always a witness to your lemons that could squeeze a profit.
Limits can be more than second hands surpassing the minute.
When is the time? Are you a counter of clockwork?

Thus old cogs and smog of our familiar faculties rest
On the zealous peals of those who know at the hour of our best.
It is not easy to lift volition past sadness so steep.
As each day would raise a mile, we may grow to smile when we sleep
Now is the time, are you a counter or clockwise?
Architects plant their imagination, weld their poems on rock,
Clamp them to the skidding rim of the world and anchor them down to its core;
Leave more than the painter's or poet's snail-bright trail on a friable leaf;
Can build their chrysalis round them - stand in their sculpture's belly.

They see through stone, they cage and partition air, they cross-rig space
With footholds, planks for a dance; yet their maze, their flying trapeze
Is pinned to the centre. They write their euclidean music standing
With a hand on a cornice of cloud, themselves set fast, earth-square.
Mike Hauser Sep 2018
Cherish the time
Set it to memory
Burn it into your soul
For it soon will be gone
As these sands of time
Pour out so quickly
Faster than we know
Leaving a hole
We're all waiting in line
With father times keeping
Life's ladder folds
At its choice of footholds
Cherish the time
Celebrate it freely
Ready, set, go
We're all going home
Medusa May 2018
weighted scales fallen from eyes that I do not own
other monsters come beneath and rise over them
we place napkins so lightly arising and weep
tea time, flowers, amenable, soothing

running to get a foothold, three steps before a leap
none will say goose goose gander to you or I
nobody wants games now in my rubble of storm
all is a heap of torn down things floating away

hold onto your hat, it's deep here, a gamble
there are footholds in a marsh inside my dream
pitons need sharpening, moon shines merciless
as we tumble into said ravine on one long string


lost, as begun
never to
rise
Andrew Town Oct 2013
You're as free as the autumn leaves,
and I'm trapped in last winters snow.
I'm stuck in the footholds I left here last year,
and it's grip isn't letting up.
I can't leave but I don't want to stay here.
Harry J Baxter Apr 2013
He came in on the Greyhound bus
with deep brown eyes
smoldering like coals in his skull
the lines on his face
and the final remains
of puberty induced acne
made his age impossible to guess
He put up in the YMCA
locked up in his room
smoking with the windows open
drinking Wild Irish Rose
It felt good
as it's warmth flowed through his veins
he felt the tightness which gripped him
dissolve until he felt
adrift in an ocean of wine
He went out on the streets
The city was mostly dead at night
which allowed him the privilege
of being alone,
his destination was unknown
and near empty buses
filled with few unfortunate to be awake
He thought
he might like to burn this place down
so something,
anything could happen
to spur him from
apathetic footholds
their had to be some action,
some life,
some danger,
left in the world,
and until then
he would drink and smoke
and wait to die
and he would move,
from town to town
until the road ran out.
A transient
PERTINAX May 2017
This swell in my heart has me considering the sea
'For as it is with the oft rough oceans
That calmness follows great depressions
Replaced by the beauty of royal blues or emerald greens
Standing in stark contrast to the ***** browns and dingy hues
That swirl during times of hurricane force
Like life (and the seas) we oft face times like these
Where mighty upheavals threaten to displace
The footholds to which we become accustomed
Frantically scrambling to reassume some measure
Of the balance better found in quiet places
Where no tide nor storm dare wake
Or disturb the imagined reds of rose or yellows of the sun
That too frequently paint the world in an impression
Even Monet could slightly hope to recreate
'For it is in this desire of serenity that we take for granted
Such trials and tribulations as seen by the seas
Appreciating them only after the calming and the waves recede
Read in landscape format
you and I, sitting on the dock
fell into the sky
while talking about death
and what comes after.

you and I fell into the sky,
our backs left the ground and
we flew head first towards the
stars and Neptune.

you and i talked about death
and our evolving relationship
with God,
or whatever you decided to call it.


you and I spoke of what comes after
the stars fade
and we are left floating
in a lightened sky.

you and i closed our eyes
so we could miss the sunrise.
we are finding footholds
on the rings of Neptune.
The vertical of the routing kinetics was far from the contemplation of the gods of the catastrophes, accepting that they had to save these souls that were tied before the inclination of the southern part of the island when it loomed in the height, related and when the lord He appeared to Saint Paul in Damascus for the reconversion of souls. Fury dried the air and became unbreathable as it exploded before the astonished gaze of those lacerated by the ins and outs of the earth, seeing that Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter came into conjunction, when the sun revolved around itself, accelerating its kinetics perigee. The misgivings took hold and the feet of all were static without, finding footholds in some astromethereology, to ask the archangels for the vindicatory fiery flame, far away in the arid atmosphere that Mercury produced when he wanted to abstain and block the unbridled Sun. The intense and changing winds emanated from the caverns, like micro hurricanes that constellated Aorion and Taurus. The darkness came out of the Pleiades from the dark Manes who envisioned the codes and omens for those who were not empowered by the claws when they aligned themselves in Taurus, and Mycenae anticipated said forecast in the Agios Andreas chorography, which on this occasion was trilocated, to resist in the same chorus of Patras, where the Apostle Andrew was announcing them between kings and generals. Everything argued from the veins of the meanders where it could be described that thunder came out from the clouds and that they were absorbed by the cracks preceded by the vigorous bells, and the bellowing of Vernarth as if they were in the hypocenter of the Arbela site, when all soldiers ran after other human species and Brisehal bellowed at them, emulating his master's senses of terror. The roar of combat was comparable to the convulsions of men running toward the lows of the earth, spitting foul-smelling whiffs from within. The galleries were hidden above and below the earth, the blows were overwhelmed by compact solid plates that flew over the lost earth, the Stymphans protected with their bronze wings the lacerated and Marie des Vallées, who in turn encouraged Vernarth who fought to protect Theus and Vikentios with Wonthelimar near masses pierced by the blast of the fiery wind. Some adobes were classified within the taxonomy of the brick that was fortified in the corners of the Hellenic temple that resisted with their flying buttresses when the parapet was raised, and they settled again after an undulating goal of venerable swaying to a Sybilla in trance. The waves ceased the high tide wind and the contrary Metelmi winds were made worse by any anger in the wreckage of a forge when the *** scarce to open the Apollo wasteland.

They all had to wait forty-five days, sheltered in the meanders. When the sea was collected after having overcome the masses of hydrosism, in any exhibition in front of anyone saying goodbye with inept imploration. Vernarth was possessed in some declines with the support of his donkeys, who had come from the Eclectic Portal to assist him in the face of this typology that only with them could he minimize. In the sixth version of his reposes, Vernarth gave them up due to the delirium of repentance, which revealed the image of the Twelve Apostles, before the scientists approached from Vernarth's Rhema who quantified the approach to austerities, which could not even be gathered in all the libraries of the World, not least in the insight of who can describe it extrinsically in the Parnassus or the Acropolis. The whole irrational focus was deified in the externalities of all the slight edges of the Milky Way, creating arcane incense fires in what is said of the trials adjacent to the springs of knowledge, to console the mourners towards a Tractatus where they will revolutionize the meanings of the signifier.

Zefian says upon emerging: “what collision affects the movements of the world when the body vibrates with confusion and not with emotion! The Fourth Sagita collided with Mercury and the Sun, everything took hold from the Aurion Belt, for them, the uneasiness is reflected in the death, by not resisting the rude speed of the ancient episodes, which in turn are in the geological testimonies from where all geological ethical matrix is born. As dignity is aquatic given its immense containment of the sinful solid, the solids want to get out of their penitentiary causes, with a habitual bustle breaking down in the valleys and mountains, which only the land contains and not the sea. When the ocean shakes, it lashes with the Aurion club at its antagonists, who could be imaginary or its own ethics that cross the seas and takes hold in amphibious larvics lands "

Zefian leaves and begins to order and incur in the surfaces that became tenuous and discreet in the labyrinth of the Tractatus and in the linguistic signs of retro life, which came to redeem their progeny that lay in the same spheres that the earth itself possessed, flooded with silt in the superimposed light of the fire as a collateral external factor that moved with all lightness, throughout the circular surface as if snatching the dynasty that the Peri Kosmous claimed, leaving it in the fractal of the nullity of the excursion, with the factorial of starting Relevant areas that do not tremble, until the soul of the world was in the trance of the same excursion, while time froze as inert matter, and real-time emerged from the thread of the excursion's digression when the mountains were not sinking, probably being so. ? That verisimilarly it would pre-exist after the final excursion where it showed its splendid chorography authentically intact.
Apollo´s  Wasteland
Christian Bixler Nov 2021
There is a quality to desolation
that I have never seen.

I have been in a desert, touched
the aridity of it’s soil, and its
air like hot feathers
on my breath;
I have seen the sea far out
with only a blue smudge on
the horizon
to mark our return.
But I have never felt that terror,
that awe and loneliness
that has been spoken of,
and said by the poets
and deliverers,
to bring ones face
to God.

Do not misunderstand me.
I have felt these things;
at the end of a trail
leading nowhere,
on a *****
with loose stones
for footholds.
I have been in places of terror
and beauty,
and been overthrown.
But not wholly.

Perhaps
I have not been still
enough, have not lingered
in those part-wild places
that have seen the summit
of my fear, my longing.
Perhaps even they, even
they, have what I seek.

Perhaps
I have not been still
enough.
https://youtu.be/YQQAsEEZorQ
Redshift Sep 2013
some people are just plain *****-*** crazy
and i can't help feeling bad for them
but if i feel bad for too many people
all i do is feel bad all the time
and that just don't work
for this girl
some crazy people i have to let slide
i can't let them use me as a foothold
every time
footholds just get stepped on
and that just don't work
for this girl
that just don't
work
if i spend my life trying to make others want to stop wanting to die then that'll take up all my time and i'll forget to make me want to stop wanting to die and then i'll die and there'll be no one to do anything. god ******
As the morning sky lights up,
he rises like the tide.
Following the same old routine,
one he’d rather not abide.

By noon he’s on his game,
carrying the world in his hands.
He scrapes and crawls and stumbles on,
finding few footholds on which to stand.

Night rolls round and he’s tired and sore,
she finds her way into his mind.
Once so very close in heart,
in a world he left so far behind.

He lifts a portal to the world,
one sleek, black, and paper thin.
He loses himself in a spider’s web,
until he finds his way to her again.

He stares calmly at the screen,
singing praises he dares not say.
Watching and waiting silently,
will he take that risk today?

On the other side of that screen
in a world that seems so far away.
She stares wishfully back at him,
pining silently, she waits.

She lingers on for a moment so dear,
yet he whispers not a sound.
She’s met with silence yet again,
a longing lost and yet to be found.

She pauses for a moment more,
she tries to clear her head.
She opens a tab and words flow out,
but she hasn’t sent them yet.

She closes her eyes, it is his wish
that he should carry on.
And so with the stroke of a key,
all her words are gone.

She logs off for the night,
she lies quietly, and wide awake.
She gave up a moment too soon,
but she knew not the risk he’d take.

For he too had opened a tab,
hoping for a moment so dear.
But when he finally built up the courage to speak,
he’d found she’d disappeared.
ok Jul 2013
She asked me if I missed him:

i miss him like the last train leaving from the station
with no money in my pocket,
just this long-winded poetry that has left its claws in me, in us.

he is everything i can't quite mold into metaphors
or syllables below the surface.
you were right when you said i was in over my head but i've been
checking these walls for a way out since the day i forgot how to feel
and he came to me like footholds carved in the cement.

i miss him like reading my favorite book for the very first time, i miss him like childhood and holidays and the longest day of summer, when the temperature rose like the fever i had broke when i was sick with butterflies and cheesy love songs.

Do I miss him?
The answer is yes.

She asked me if it was worth it:

i'm reminded of the passenger seat of your car
where you taught me it was okay to be  happy for no reason,
to be in love with the life you were given simply because there's things
like the smell of a memory and homemade pizza and the 20 questions game.

the way your eyes can tell stories
and your hands can plea bargain
and I knew from that day on that it takes true lovers to be silly.

If I could trade days of dreaming for seconds of spooning I would do in a hummingbird heartbeat because a day without you is like a year without rain, &
I'm living in a drought.
But the very moment your chest welcomes my shivering lungs, I can feel myself exhale, and the weeks of hydration suddenly become sacrificial.

Is it worth it?
The answer is yes.
Life's a Beach Oct 2013
I'm having an attack
and I don't know who to
call.
I don't know if I'll
ever break down
these walls of
social insecurity.
"Who would want to listen to me?"
Listen to me ramble,
and scramble for
footholds.
Watch me fold in
on myself,
shelfing mentally the
moment
the date
the weight of this
particular distress.

Give me a minute,
I'll just compress it.

Target 1: learn to admit
when you need help.
shirley temple Aug 2011
the entire sky felt too heavy
so it sunk to its knees
begging for relief
for the emptiness
that always follows the pain
numbness in place of agony.

this is the time of dying suns
that donate brilliant colours to the sky
for those who admire the deep red vistas
and feel the end of another lonely day.

hot shock to the system,
this is sunlight
breaking your body
with unbending hands,
the heaviest hit
hurting even the hollows
between your bones,

this is the time that shadows grow
scurrying and juvenile in their footholds,
the newfound cracks and crevices
where dying light has lost its strength.

the wind has birthed us
tornado children in the night
the dark swallowing us
to be as invisible as our mother
and just as powerful.
the sun is still shining
where you are,
as my head blushes against
a pillow.

this is a time of change
allowing the world to be something different
allowing us to escape ourselves
this is the night.
Frazer Charlton Apr 2014
To the Pixie of Te Tokerau,
from the fields of karaehe tu
where you belong
e **** te ra ake ake ake .
     Piercings and Tattoos
drugs, spirits, and taboos.
     Your journey will be successful
the Mountain is steep
but the footholds are strong.
     Haere ki toku taha and let
the petals fall, bare all
ki te awhiawhi the ****** of our minds
thoughts and fears.
    I haere no nga whīra
engari me hoki atu koe
I will fall
into the chasms of the seas
into the depths of the chest o te ngahere
and I will wait in the craters of the moon
ki te matakitaki i tō harikoa.
But,
when you return from your fields
and venture from the pratum,
explore with me.




Te Tokerau-The North
karaehe tu- tall grass
e **** te ra ake ake ake- the sun shines forever
Haere ki toku taha- come with me
ki te awhiawhi- to embrace
  I haere no nga whīra- you walked from the fields
engari me hoki atu koe- but you must return
te ngahere- the forest
ki te matakitaki i tō harikoa.- to watch your happiness
Yeah, so I wrote this we thing for one of best friends,
A mixture of English and basic reo Māori,
both are important to me.
Wack Tastic Nov 2014
While watching Nick Jr.
At 3 AM,
I realized,
That I should comply,
the best word out there,
the one most up to date,
top of the line,
descriptor of how I view this,
that a person,
On that personal journey,
Has the ability to take things,
as they come,
The right to comply and accept,
subtle resistance,
sparks make in the dark,
or complain and argue,
With our fair lady Reality,
Our comfort zones snug in the couch,

Softening our undersides,
cradling our egos,
tingles of nostalgia tickle the nostrils,
A temptation of non-timelessness,
Themes have evolved,
While evolving the themes decreased,
Sensation dwindled,
Mankind found daily interaction difficult.

Rallying in treasured desert halls,
Painted absurd pink propaganda soliloquies,
Fill the hall,
Shut the door,
See it all come down,
The exhaustion,
The living nights,
Scarred Skies,
Makeshift holes of the soul,
Realign and try,
For the love of God; try,
Better that your tethers are secure,
It makes the construction workers,
Safe; all up there,
Cold as can be,
Shivering at 100° desolation,
moving like creme statues,
Up there,
That tie to the platform
Preserves the sonder,
That fact that,
Someone is up to what they are up to,
Paranoia shouts find out,
Passivity says let it be,
midsentence it all makes sense,
tat the net of being,
flies along the bleating radar,
the seismic adventures of man,
Trampolines collective consciousness,
Floating together in the void,
Finding our footholds,
our tethers,
they are our feathers,
ironically,
the bonds that
caress in segments,
the grand confusion of time,
the singing buffoons in the void,
the crazy madmen we all are,
daily psychosis pills,
Excrement recipient,
that moment to moment,
preservation of existence,
Seems everything is going to hell,
in a hand basket,
yet the cave blares within,
a source of nihilistic capitalization,
Banging infants in Foot Lockers,
It should outrage,
All that progress is accomplishing,
segregation,
The isle of a certain strain,
The mental stimulants are similar,
they age appropriately,
it is comparative,
that we all understand,
Complying,
Sizing up and making the gentle leap,
In the wake it wouldn't mind,
if the time was right,
when you're ready,
then the exchange may happen,
A future can be fathomed,
Braving the Unknown's womb,
Past and present collide,
They lie,
Side by side,
like tin soldiers in the mud,
Anguish,
What fortune lies on our sidewalks,
What can be said,
About O so crazy madmen,
As they contort in the Unknown,
What is the amount worthy,
Assessed in some lab,
Looking down the lens we'd assume,
Kerouac atoms abound,
the Samsara principle,
of all them principles and none,
because we fraternize,
we tempt the fates,
Gerald said,
We exist in the scripts,
we sing on the shows,
we don't accept or comply,
we should look around,
and see Others,
A renouncing of old habits,
Don't call me a Dadaist,
*******,
I'm into the  primitivism,
in respect to our attention span,
we have a grip on ourselves,
almost,
Fatalistically we are born on the,
crest of a wave,
eternally throttled by chaos,
when the wave sank its teeth,
into the sands of the immediate generation's side,
That reins are there,
Now more than ever,
I guess we are too far gone,
That's what those fanatic fatalists think.
betterdays Apr 2014
i stand for a while,
ankle deep,
in the soft sinking sand,
at the tip of the tides reach.
the final inches of
the curlique wavelets
wash over my feet
and take with them,
on their return to
the brotherhood of
salt and water,
my footholds.
the water, refreshingly
cold on this hot muggy
summer afternoon.
i wade further in to
the calmer wash area,
after the waves have broken,
to about mid thigh
before
i dive shallowly through
the caesious waters
of the green room's
breaking waves,
and swim out,
to beyond the rise
and swell of surf.
to float in the
embryonic embrace
of the sea
my heart sings
with primal joy
at the saltinate communion.
after time slows, sufficiently,
i return to the beach.
and stand in
the pressing warmth,
with rivulets
of my mermaid self
dripping onto the sand.
Chloe K Mar 2013
We are all reverberating shrapnel of an explosive kaleidoscope of organized chaos
We’re scurrying ants piggybacking bread crumbs that press too-heavily on our abdomens
We’d scratch our way up to the constellations on the ceiling if we could just be weightless; if we could just find the right handgrips and footholds
But shoelaces get tangled, palms get sweaty, knuckles get scratched, bodies get heavy
So instead we settle for ducking into tunnels, seeking out the empty train-cars and avoiding eye contact with strangers
Seated alone in tattered pleather seats, we wish we could dissolve the stained grimy window-glass that stands between us and everything that could matter
We’ll force smile-lines into our cheeks when we reach our destinations while quietly scrabbling at the semiprecious dream of a place that we can’t articulate: the unattainable, inexplicable else else elsewhere
lX0st Nov 2018
When my body and soul
No longer entwine
What will become of my spine?

Does it sigh solaced croon
A hymn-silken harpoon
Propelling me
Through
Threshold everlasting?

Or will it crumble by piece
Like moldy blue cheese
Marrow vinaigrette feeds
Famished nerve roots
And dirt
Absorbing lost life,
Fueling the Earth?

Perhaps a doctor
Will pass it along
Loaded syringe,
Silver and mauve
Into flesh as fresh
As death’s final breath
Enervated vertebrae
A-positive strong

Or maybe it retreats
Into shadows sea-deep
Steel-tipped discs
Flash of shimmer
As they sink
Footholds for lost souls
Sin-dark landmarks
Untouched by warmth
And
Unseen by stars
God's word is not always clear
We may doubt or be confused
Strain our brains or miss the point
Yet the answer is often near

Ridiculous riddles baffle our minds
With complex teachings and words
We grasp for footholds in the text
Yet a persistent follower always finds...

Finds the will and is not deterred
That is a true follower of Christ
©️ 2021 Joshua Reece Wylie. All rights reserved.
Inspired by my faith in Jesus
Heather Butler Oct 2010
Handholds placed at random
and footholds where my hands should go.
Down below, the bored crowd waiting its turn
and above, a spinning red light awaiting the bell.
Halfway up and I've realized
I never learned how to rock climb anyway.
Heather Butler; 2010
Clare Margaret Jul 2017
Doctor Dearest,
when I ask you to drip sweetness into my veins
do not tell me that life looks better
with stuck-open eyes and *******.
I want to feel my arms light up with the anticipation
of release.

Do not prescribe me rest, I’ve had enough of that
to make an infant cry out in envy.
And anyway, my bed is stone
and my blanket is fire spun into thread.
Sleep does not tempt me unless
it is guaranteed.

Do not tell me to eat
or unfold your little pyramid,
a stack of sins that weigh on me
with the full force of an iron curse.
Food does not welcome me into its yellow-walled home--
it senses desire and punishes me.

Do not pull a magic pill out of your hundred dollar hat
and fold my fingers along its dusty edges
because I will crush it under my weight
and piece it back together with spittle-thread,
the glue of a starver’s refusal.

Do not promise me that time heals pain
when I’m not even an inch up this mountain.
My feet cannot balance on footholds
carved in mud,
and my hands were stolen
from a chest in my own ghost’s attic.
They haven’t been used in this lifetime.

Doctor, Sir, do not tell me that I am sweet enough
to tempt even the fullest stomachs
and the tallest men.
I know the taste of dirt
because it sours my tongue and scrapes my throat.
And I am tired, so tired
of digesting Earth
when I wasn’t meant to be fed.
Xyns Mar 2014
It's like I'm climbing a mountain
With no safety gear
At first, it was easy
Perfectly placed footholds
Easy access
But things have changed
They are crumbling and slippery
And the ones below me have crumbled away
All above get more and more spaced out
They get smaller and smaller
But I just can't turn away
Ray Dunn Dec 2020
be the vines,
exist slowly. cautiously.

crawl up, looking for any
footholds to expand your reach.

exist violently.
tear down the bricks of
the building you conquered

and above all else—

rise to the top of what you hate the most.
not the best flow but a viewpoint i live by
Beth Ivy Jun 2014
jam broken fingers into unforgiving rock
stab stones beneath fingernails
cut the quick and pack with dirt.
pry and force then heave the body up.

repeat.

thin air cannot fill to capacity
lungs which crave more oxygen
than their shape can stand to keep.
another foot, another five.
repeat.
repeat.
repeat.

The whipping Wind and Its gentle Breezes call
                                 whispering of wings, aeries and westerlies.


scorn the Voice and clamber on, this vertical my only chance
to gain ground, gain purchase, gain peace.
devoted to this ritual of pull and ******, panic and strive
a wreckage of creature-form smeared across the escarpment.
grapple for territory but don't look down--
below is the Dark
i thought i left so far below.
it haunts my shadow, dogs my ragged breaths
it's gaping maw hangs open, ready
to swallow me whole.

The Wind beckons:
                         Let go.
                           The dark follows all who try to scale the face.
                                                           ­                   Let go and I will catch you.


"No.
I've come so far.
I've earned too much."
broken knuckles and gashed shins scream
at the injustice of this siren call
to fail, to quit, to concede my only way to the summit
and now it is nearer than ever---
though to my eyes it remains the nightmare
it has always seemed.

Rest and breathe.
         Feel you form and know yourself.
                        You were not built to climb and crawl;
                        You are no worm nor serpent.
What have you done to your skin that it does not feel?
What have you done to your eyes that they cannot see?


that melodic muttering rustles within
stirring something deep below my wind beaten flesh--
STOP.
Cram shut ears and struggle on, and do not hear Wind's whisper.
Ascend though arms seem insufficient to the task.
raking desperately with bloodied fingers against the wall
a sudden answering rip sears across the back.
white hot pain etches its sign into weathered skin
and is then soothed by a flowing trickle of warmth.
scarlet drips onto my legs, my heels
staining, painting treacherous footholds
as marrow pulls against my spine
in shapes heavy and cramped
in their first taste of life.

swoon, overtaken by the struggle so long nursed against the rock
and the war of transformation waged against shoulder blades--
vision blurs then swirls
hands grip then slip
seek then lose
frantic, thrashing about for a hold:
                                                           ­  no promise given by the stone.
f
a
   l
     l
       i
         n
            g
             plummeting
               unstoppable
                 acceleration


Let go, arms outstretched.
                         This action, flight's only catch.


the Wind's plea scarcely able to be disobeyed
let go or fall, i am lost to the cliff all the same.
soaring downward masses at my back
snap and crunch taking shape
though dripping still from their curious birth
                                                           ­             
                                                                ­            hopeless now but to trust
                                                           ­      to try in ways so unlike striving
                              

*and let the Wind take me.
on faith and trust. certainly one of my longest poems.
this is a third draft that may need some further work.
Olivia Kent Jan 2016
I fell off a horse just once.
Soon I got back on.
My horse was life's experience.
To live a life, to learn full on.
Extract a learning curve.
Steeper by the climb.
Without footholds'
Onwards.
Upwards.
On I climb.

On man as an indigenous species climb.
Catching clouds.
Somehow the catcher of clouds just gets wet.
Nighttimes' are for catching stars.
Sadly never done.
The stars are always falling.
Catch a falling star.
Can you slip it in your apron?
No of course a mere duplication of falling of my horse.
Learning or not.
It's all that mankind's got.
(c)LIVVI
betterdays May 2014
the sadness rolls in
like waves eroding the shore
and the tides coming in
forecast of more storms
and heavy weather
skys dismal,pewter grey
friend is dying
and the waves are
eroding  my footholds away
kingtide baby, kingtide.
Michelle Oag Dec 2015
I'm falling down a deep dark pit
There is no footholds to save me from the fall
The walls are closing in around me
Not sure if they will crush me before I hit the bottom
Or I'll just hit the bottom
In this deep dark pit their is no light
No light to my darkness
No friends
No love
No hope
No light
Darkness
Forever.
What seems like my life right now.
once privileged Dec 2018
The errs end
All come to mend
-Excuses away
Adhere to a calling
Amidst the falling
Footholds of dark
For depths unseen
Shall shine brightest
Under my light

No longer lost,
Just on my way
Far from home
I'm reaching out
here I subsist trudging thru the cold dark,
numb to the world, numb to myself

flickering light finds me glowing
warming my frozen bones

with every sudden darkness the chill rushes back
each time the light goes out it takes a piece of my mind with it

as i reach toward the light to see why it flickers it moves away
just out of reach refusing my touch

my tired dry eyes blink and when they open the light is gone its warmth replaced by an even colder chill, the darkness even darker

I scream but there is no one to hear, did I scream if no one heard?
A sound reaches my ears like the wailing of a banshee,
my voice reflected upon the frozen landscape is the only thing to keep me company in this dark frozen waste.

My footholds broken.
sorrows of the heart
Black hot tar
Falls from the peak
Onto the white
marring
staining
It's stench
Overwhelms
envading
Unable to get away
The heat
acidic
Crevices made
Footholds to the plateau
gone
Sides slick
No amount of purity
grace
truth
Can wipe it clean
Welcome to the valley of life
Where all good fades
All attention given
The DISCOVERY of *Man
Pre-trial today. It was horrible..
Padan Fain Sep 2015
Indigo spilled through the arid cradle

across scabbed lakebeds
their life long ago robbed
by errant dust devils
sniggering back to their grottoes
in the barren foothills

through seemingly dead hands
eternally arthritic
arched up, and into
the earth-filled wind of creation
scouring the impurities from the land

past the aeon-old titans
clinging to thier final mountainous footholds
weary from their trek from the Tide
ready to descend into the valley
to die with the dawn

in every hidden oasis of life
every subtle warren and clandestine nest
where the small things, with every painful breath
prove that existence
is worth struggling for

and out, under the broken edges of the sky
whose shattered glass fell ages ago
a septillion points of light
ground by the endless cycle
back into the loam


but where Indigo goes so too goes her keeper
mounting the cradle, flooding the valley
hidden in their woven coffins, their buried crypts
the small things bowed thier heads,
and the land fell silent


the malevolent sentinel had come


monarch of the pit, lord of the ******
soaring to his azure font of judgement
culling by flame those creatures found most wanting
for this is his domain, it's denizens whisper: fed by the Hell-born river

until he dies once more
his dirt choked blood spilling into the horizon
trickling down the desert's spine
followed by the silent chime of stars,
and a resurgence of life,


waiting for thier own lord to rise


it's here you will find him
atop the granite seat that breaks the basin floor
the man with evergreen eyes

having found when facing North

the Moon is always at his back
6/17/2015
For Tidewalker
With an intent of
Stripping off all--Wives & footholds--
And taking over,
A monkey measures
And measures
Father's foot mark
Walking behind father's back
And inflict on the same attack
Cognizant ,subject to
The wear and tear of time
, feeble,
A defensive hand
Father could lack!

A mentor,  I helped
An apprentice
Acquire a sharp mind
And a nimble hand
Till on his feet stand.

When he realized
He has ensured balance
Began the apprentice
Forward advance,
Quite strange to the behaviour
Of other apprentices.
Ungrateful he started to hurl
Acerbic remark
About  my skills
Casting a covetous glance
For boss's chair a chance.
Among my subordinates and students some have this mentality.
VanillinVillain Sep 2021
On and off and on again
we play our foolish games
will they won't they, if and maybe
hiding in our shame.
Reaching blindly out to you
fingers through the aching dark
feeling failing for the footholds
leading up and t'ward your heart.
But only when you will it so
only when you're in that zone for
other times you barely show
retention of our ebb and flow.
As if ashamed, you are of me
hoping others never see.

— The End —