The ascender
struggled to the dais
stopping to rub
his sore calves
still filled with lactic acid…

“I forsook the post
workout massage
to deliver this eulogy.

Thats how
important it is
to me…”

His voice began
to trial off but
he regained his
composure and
began to speak
with command...

“He gave his life for me.
Is there no greater love
than to offer a life
in service
to me?

My Sherpa
was moved
and motivated
by economic
compulsion.

I offered him
the only wage
paying job
he ever had.

He ran with it,
taking up my
cause as if
it belonged
to him;
performing
his job
as if engaged
in a heroic
mission.

At times it
he seemed
consumed by
the largess of
my pursuit;
and his death
will bring
economic
calamity
to his family.

This further
confirms
the nobility
of my
mission.

The price
of intrepidness
is dear and
made clear,
its value
fully fleshed
out in the
sacrifice of
my Sherpa.

You may ask,
“why do I do it?”

It is no longer
disputed, if it
can be done.

Sir Edmund
and his Sherpa
answered that
question over half
a century ago.

The only
question
remaining,
"can the mountain
be conquered by me?"

I'll risk sacred fortune,
limb, life, family and
Sherpa to discover
the answer to this...

I must guard
against the
inflation of
my desire to
summit at
any cost.

I'm aware
of the
dangers
presented
by the
expanding
circumference
of my pride,
just a
meager
centimeter or
two can spell
disaster for
me.

Yet testing
its tensility,
tempting
the tipping point
of temerity,
managing the
permeability,
of risk factors
and psychical
rewards to
sift through
the membrane
that calculates
the odds to
successfully
arbitrage the
resolution of
gaming
winners and
losers,
achieving
a perfect balance
manifested in
the mettle
of me.

My
determination
shines
in pursuit
of a
golden fleece.

In my
solitary
quest
I don a
holy halo
crowning me
and fellow
climbers
stricken
with a like
obsession,
sets us apart,
anointing us
the royalty
of high stakes
X Games,
bellying
up 70 grand
to claim our
place in an
extreme
leisure class,
gifted
with time
and treasure
to turn this
unforgiving peak
into a graveyard,
a dump heap,
an open latrine…

The glaciers bleed
my **** into the tributaries
of the Holy Ganges...

My virtues
made plain
in the indelible
mark I leave
upon the mountain...

My life dedicated
to the unselfish pursuit
of a magnanimous me
quick to forgive
and forget the
failures of the
lesser who
lack the ability
and conviction
of self
to conquer
the highest peaks
meeting challenge
and opportunity
with relish and
fortitude

I'm like a
strip miner
singlemindedly
tearing the roof
of the world open
so I can fill it
with the purpose
of me.

That is the
deeper significance
of the death of my
Sherpa.

When Edmund Hillary
and his Sherpa scaled
Everest 60 years ago,
it took decades
to remember that
Tenzing Norgay
guided the beknighted
Hillery, while schlepping
his baggage and
holding the ladder
lifting the
great man
in a great
endeavor;
whose strength
and valiance
turns history’s
creaky wheel.

Sir Hillary did it
because it was
never done before;
with stoutheartedness
and national vigor
Sir Hillary conquered
the last pinnacle
in Britannia's majestic
range of storied
achievements.

As climate change
turns glaciers
into slush,
my time
grows short
to scratch my
initials alongside
the greats who
ascended this mount
before me.

So it is
with well
considered
trepidation that
I send my Sherpa
out onto the
hanging peaks,
to set the ladders
and clear the
path for
the assent
of me.

Every morning
I look into
the mirror
glimpsing
a fleeting
notion of
greatness
that is only
affirmed by
triumph of
the will.

At such a cost
my legend is born
my burden
grows greater,
weighted by
the death of
my Sherpa.

Yet my resolve
grows, eclipsing
the size of
Warren Buffett’s
fortune.

As the world warms
urgency grows,
the alarm sounds!

Onward Sherpas!

Lay the ladder
portage my baggage
the labors of Sisyphus
will find reward
of a goodly outcome!

I press the coin
of the realm into
your hand

The prayer flags
fill with determination
that I succeed,
giving your life meaning
as divine compensation
for the cost of your life.

The prayer flag’s flap
with the mountain squalls
popping, snapping
our hosannas
of victory

Onward Sherpas!

Ever Onward
may the good
Buddha
embrace
you as you
climb toward
your next
destination...

Onward Sherpas!

Music Selection
Sherpa Dance Music

Poem dedicated to the 13 Sherpa climbers
who lost their lives this week on Mount Everest.
May they find peace in heaven
may their families find peace and
sustenance here on earth.

Oakland
4/23/14
jbm

One phone call later.
A swift valediction-
Volcanic silence erupts.
Animated adrenaline fires
through my veins
singeing like flames licking paper.
Just his voice,
his words have flipped my internal balance
and let the butterflies out of their cages.
So they fly,up up and up
around in perfect tea cupped patterns.
and I'm helpless just to watch their performance.
I don't feel like me,
More of a mysterious mirage that appears when you call
and when the phone clicks- it ends.
when I'm around you,
you my dear just you
I'm intrepid.

Your heart bleeds red, but your teeth are sharp, and yet
Your sultry coated darkness, steals the beats from my heart
That hazy clothed intrepidness, finds me, constantly astounded
Your worth lies, undiscovered, it is so far beneath your eyes, but baby
I See You
And I know, that
Far beneath this dripping wet pile, of freshly ended possibility
On the coldest of concrete, shattered and shivering
Lies the broken key to your perfect heart

Inward apathy is not
to be confused with
sociopathic credence.
It's a blade held to the throat
of the man that wields it.
Never would the cold steel touch
the person who thinks of suicide
as cowardice, but believes bravery
to be disillusionment in the form
of medication, or speaking up and out
offering solutions to problems
that they do not know the variables
that come along with it.

How many teeth make up a smile?
How many lines form a frown?
If lines are infinite,
what does that tell you about
an expression that is countered by
obligatory inquisitive ambivalence.

Shoulders are for tears.
Spines are for intrepidness.
Skin is layered; tough and thick
no matter benevolent or malevolent,
a person's love is misconstrued
as skin deep, albeit it is formed
between synapses.

It's a spark, a fire, the intuition
to never say goodbye
and ignore accountability.

Poetry is the prose that is produced by the curve of your smile and the twinkle of your eyes as they defy rhyme by line every **** time making visual couplets and sensual pentameters which are as iambic as the way your words float every time you speak in that lovely alto that creates a sestina and a haiku and a sonnet and an intrepidness in my hands as they run through your hair smooth as Bukowski ******* his working class ****** earning protests from Sylvia Plath heard through the oven door which you hog so often and I laugh when you do so I sit you down and say I'll get your breakfast baby don't worry and you smile that prose poetic smile that seems to be the indefatigable source of all these literature and damage to my soul which is not mutually exclusive

You are my dauntless sword;
Gleaming iridescently in light, and in the absence of it.
Enticing my wistful eyes with your intrepidness,
before chanting, "My hero of sorts."

You feathered my growth with fairy tales and mendacities,
Always winning agaisnt the evil that you made me believe.
You were the tenacious tower who locked me out of peril,
I was the naïve, gullible, stupid damsel who believed all of it.

I'm like the crumpled up poem in the deep of your coat pocket,
forgotten.
Until you reach your hand in, snaking around for your chapstick.
You write a few more words and then shove it back in,
waiting for your next stroke of inspiration,
your next breach of intrepidness.
But until then,
I'm just another crumpled receipt in your coat pocket.
Maybe one day I'll be able to tell you I love you.
Maybe one day you'll care.
But until then,
keep writing your mindful thoughts
on the crumpled up paper in your coat pocket.