"snowcapped" poems
across my face.
I saw spring coming
in the meadow
where the wildflowers
whisper to the wind.
found freedom on a snowcapped mountain top,
smiled to the child offering violets
cradled in her tiny hands
and when she smiles to me
her joy ripples like sunlight
across the sea of love.
the curtain is lifted.
the soul becomes visible
(always in the wild places
in my heart.)
Aug 2, 2025
Aug 2, 2025 at 9:22 PM UTC
#*A thrown flat stone skipped
across the snowcapped reflection
breaking the mirror glass surface;
rippling the glaring still waters
the way a trailing piano note
slowly decays to a sobering hush
A gentle puff of silence
segued into a fading
whisper's echo*
Jesse
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 10:21 AM UTC
A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.
Oct 14, 2012
Oct 14, 2012 at 6:51 PM UTC
A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.
Jun 24, 2012
Jun 24, 2012 at 9:14 PM UTC
A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 12:26 PM UTC
Life’s an upward struggle, and it makes it so much rougher
when the ladder you find yourself climbing is beset by lonely weather.
When every other rung is off doing other things,
the solitude and altitude bring to mind desolation
and the emptiness that brings.
No matter the genius emanating from ivory minds,
the smartest man among us often finds
that brilliance unfiltered clogs up the system,
when others must consume the lonely perfume
of conceits kept alone,
while the common thoughts stay collected
like so many sheep in a pen that’s separated
from self-same lonely thoughts,
that genius oft encounters,
left only amongst the happiness
that fills up life’s happy coffers.
So it goes that lofty ideals become frostbitten
by snowcapped mountains of emptiness.
Others seek the heights together only during pleasant weather,
while those who trounce through snow-packed trails
must brave the climes alone tempted only by fate,
to descend to summits more frequent
than the peaks of accomplishment.
Gangrenous lips cannot utter
the chilled revelations of those left above too long.
So it is left to those below,
not inferior from the altitude,
just more likely acclimated to the difficult, dull journey
of those who spare pristine slopes
for the sullied, muddied slush on the tourist trails below.
Sep 21, 2012
Sep 21, 2012 at 2:49 AM UTC
.
A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.
Oct 16, 2014
Oct 16, 2014 at 11:19 AM UTC
A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 28, 2013 at 3:47 PM UTC
from the void
the mountain speaks
the beat goes on
in these desolate peaks
moss covered stacks
of sea floor and mantle
embrace and fold
in metamorphic tangle
stunted fir clings
graying roots exposed
a rocky, barren life
is all this sapling knows
snowcapped elderberry
scale the crevice
where bear and wind
make raucous passage
avalanche chutes
gracefully recline
in verdant shades
to the waterline
lie in the meadow
to calm the chatter
make still the noise
to blunt the clatter
upon the coming
of soft night
undress this silence
angel mine
*I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.
-Jack Kerouac*
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC
*Autumn robins hop spritely in Sycamore trees
With gingerly voices , with musical tributes
just for me
Choruses of carry on , carry softly , carry me back , carry
me home heard in the breeze
Sing blue for love lost , yellow for childhood
summer , crimson for the coming dusk , violet
for the wildflowers that edge hill country thick pine forest
Chre , chree , cha -chreet
Swee , swee , cha -roo
Perform colors of the bounty of spring , of afternoon sunbeams , of boysenberries and roadside streams
Sing polyphonies of winter , snowcapped hedgerows and holiday dreams*
Dec 14, 2016
Dec 14, 2016 at 6:28 PM UTC
Mopeds, Mercedes
Dandelions and daisies
Churches
Mosques
Women masked
Exposed eyes
Revealing
More than the body
Ever could.
Lingerie
Sold openly on the street
Olives
By the kilogram
To fast-talking
Fast-walking
Men and women
Young and old.
Ancient ruins,
Ruined
The fall of one civilization
Destroyed
Merely to give rise
To one that will
Only hope to make men
Worth remembering.
Mystery lies
In the lives of artifacts
Bare finger tips
Graze over frescoes
Religion
Art
Expression
Litters every corner
Accompanied by waste
And poppies
Blood red
Amidst the gray haze
Of cigarette smoke
And pollution
Clouding the view
Of snowcapped mountains
Diamond lakes
Undisturbed
Surrounded by
Mopeds, Mercedes
Dandelions and Daisies
Jun 18, 2013
Jun 18, 2013 at 9:42 PM UTC
I crave the taste
of icy air,
of snowcapped mountains,
and rugged rock
beneath my feet.
To have wildflowers
sprout
from my fingertips,
my tongue
rich
in the language
of flowing rivers,
So that my eyes
will become
parts of constellations
with lashes
of evergreen needles,
My skin of clay,
heart of earth,
and of fire,
with thoughts
made up of
stardust
so they can touch
the moon.
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 1:17 PM UTC
Audrey
Won't you shine your light
Spread your loving on me
Audrey
My delight
Send your loving to me
I walked to heaven
and fought the hell to get there
The pictures are the proof
I took 'em
You find them
You'll never see anything like it again
Snowcapped Mountains of paradise
as cold as it was ridged
Sunlight bouncing off of white clouds
The artist broke the easel
Audrey
Audrey
I saw your latest victim. Enjoying summer camp
When colored leaves are falling Then will you return?
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 2:34 PM UTC
when i look at life
in all its complexity
i see a river
making its sinuous way
from the high snowcapped mountains
to the currents, waves and tides
of the eternal ocean
and there to evaporate
rising up in silver clouds
above the towering peaks
to rain and snow upon them
and flow down again
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 11:14 PM UTC
the door is still ajar and there is still a lamp lit
and hue spills out in a straight line
where I follow markings on the
sides of highways to forget
how I won't forget the impression
you leave on the sidewalk through
season after passage of next to
brightlit stripmalls somewhere
with snowcapped mountains
and lakes and lakes and lakes away know
I'll probably miss you
when streetlights burn down
when stoplights wear out
I'll be out on the ocean
you'll find me in
hillsides on
indian summer mornings
or in
rain flecks on train windows
winding trails around
provinces I'll
never figure out how to pronounce
you won't miss me
May 26, 2013
May 26, 2013 at 4:13 AM UTC
your words form universes of northern lights,
diluted by stars and the constellations
of your cold lips against mine.
whole mountain ranges sigh and creak,
standing on their tiptoes,
reaching for the moon, for your rhymes,
for you,
to be dissolved into snowcapped hours,
where broken typewriter keys align
with earthquakes and forgotten mistakes.
you are a waterfall, an unexplored ocean,
the yellow of maps from other people's adventures.
you are every undressed superlative
that creaks my floorboards
and casts across my walls
as starlight.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 3:39 PM UTC
The clumsy metaphor of a graveyard
will go largely unnoticed by me for some time,
by then I will still love you
and you will love someone else.
We don’t know this. We’re stumbling through
snowcapped, oddly pristine tombstones
at midnight while a thirty-something
Brooklynite rambles about
upkeep of monuments to dead things,
the finessing of memories into smooth
marble and granite boxes but I do not listen,
the swooping nape of your neck distracts me.
I will later regret this.
How did I miss something dying
right next to me, as we held hands,
where did the love go when I gave back
the scrapbook you made called
"70 Reasons Why I Love You,"
because memories weren't good enough,
memories remind me that every corpse
once loved and we all die and we all love
but I'd rather die
than feel like this.
How couldn't I tell
from the way we kissed
that everything was wrong?
I know nothing of
the upkeep of monuments to dead things,
the bodies in my head have all been exhumed
or burned and given back,
and I should have listened
to that ******* hipster because
after all this time,
I cannot remember anything
but your exposed alabaster skin,
flushed by cold,
on that lonely winter night.
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 12:01 AM UTC
A little girl in handmade dress.
Black shoes with
White knee-high stockings.
Shy eyes framed
By and hiding behind
Long curly
Blonde locks,
Waiting with me at
The bus stop
Each school morning.
Vulnerable
Protected from the harsh
Outside world.
But nothing can completely
Shut out its
Cruel essence.
The outside
Can creep in or the
Inside holds dormant
Outside influence
Like the eggs of the proverbial tree
Lizard laid among eggs in a
Bird's nest
Remaining dormant to eventually
Hatch to feed on the newly born fowl.
Faith soothes the pain
By daily standing
On the sidelines
Of the pantomime
Of the mundane
As lush dense
Ivy reaches
For the sky but must
First slowly crawl
Over a cold
Gray wall of stone
Reaching
For dreams and ideals
Once clearly seen
On the horizon of the
Unobscured plains
Of childhood.
A bit harder at the myopic
Foothills of youth.
Now harder than ever
At the jagged
Snowcapped mountains of
Adulthood.
The curly locked
Little girl still lives
After all these years.
Lives on to
Balance the weight
Of disappointments
Compressed by daily
Reminders of that
Once dormant inside
Influence unleashed
In the innermost
Sanctity of trust.
Lives
In the security
Of ideals gradually
Becoming reality.
That place in the heart
That no one can touch
That no one can
Invade.
Thank God that home is where the heart is!
¤¤¤
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC
A day to climb the
Sunlight
Thoughts swirling within a
Cage
You felt like an endless search.
The snowcapped Swiss alps
Seems so morbid
Like they knew everything
Even the love letters have
Turned to dust.
Years later there’s still a
Vacuum in the cold
Meditating night
The scotch brings you alive.
Your staring eyes are
The reminder of the song
In the city traffic.
You were there all
Along in the words
Of my poem.
© Wanderer 2015
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 8:29 AM UTC
all my photos are in his passenger's seat
these black and whites of him singing
and talking about the wars he has and hasn't
been in, navigating Penrose like he walked
these roads a thousand times before he ever
took a truck--
and he know everybody's name, date of birth
and probably their social, who died and when--
he's been livin' as 14 other people,
never gets no space and I'm no respecter of that
neither cause the way he looks at me used to
scare me and now I know he jus' scared himself.
saw it when he told me about Braun's body
in the brambles, and in the letters he gets from
past lovers full of jealous jargon-- you made *me
feel terrible*, your fault, ending in a hundred
goodnights, she wants the last word and all I want
is for him to tell me what he's thinkin' when he's angry
'cause he is angry, with bitterness sunk down in his bones
and swimmin' 'round in his chest, he lost weight out at the rig
but kept all that melancholy to himself, brings it home and
drops it in a glass before taking it back in
he asks why I'm lookin' and it's just 'cause.
Just 'cause i'm looking at his eyelashes while
he sleeps or the lip of his brow hidin' eyes a lot lighter than you'd think, committing the eagle on his back to memory
with that scripture from Isaiah a ways off in my head,
scrawled on the back of my heart,
written at the crown of his spine,
I used to wonder about the integrity of his skin
if water'd seep through or run off, used to think
he was made of wood with rice paper shutters--
but he's a mountain, a snowcapped alp
you wouldn't know it from a ways off,
when he's just a soldier standing out
in the field, shoulders hunched, chin tucked
breathin' cold air, but Lord he warm, fierce as the
mistakes he runnin' from--
we both beggin' to be right
or good enough, for the sunlight
to make us into somethin' pretty
somethin' new and shined--
but for now i'm takin' pictures shotgun,
hiding my fingers in my pockets
thinking about the way his voice'd
prolly blow in on the curtains on a
summer's day, and he's singing
My love, is somewhere in that mountain....
my love is somewhere in that mountain
Dec 12, 2016
Dec 12, 2016 at 9:49 PM UTC
As the snowflakes start falling
I am left cold, and wanting.
Carols, like thick smoke, fill the air
Serenading people who didn't see me there.
Boney hands outstretched like a leafless tree
There are some things people don’t wish to see
Alms, alms, just for one hot meal,
Alms for Christmas, don’t make me steal.
Alms, for cocoa with peppermint and cream
Alms for kindness, for a childhood dream.
But my hands remained empty, catching only snow
The wool clad shoppers bustling past, rush rush, two days to go.
They pay me no heed for I am ragged, unsightly
They don’t want to ***** their conscience, for it shines so brightly.
The streets, eerily quiet on this cold winter morning.
Empty, not a soul in sight, not a caroler performing.
Frost laden windows reveal a world now beyond my grasp,
In tired eyes tears well as I'm visited by Christmas’ past.
A snowcapped landscape fills my thoughts
A small cabin by the woods is where I'm brought.
The sun is just starting to peek above the mountain,
Its rays springing forth like a golden fountain.
Wake up early! Before Mom and Dad,
We had to see what new toys we had.
“Look ***** look! Santa was here!
He left a print in the hearth and fed his reindeer!”
Mom made coffee as dad rubbed his eyes,
Once presents were done, we had one last surprise,
Once presents were done, we had one last dream.
hot cocoa, with peppermint and cream!
And then it was gone, like the crack of a whip,
It was gone before I got even a single sip.
Back to the seeping cold, the piercing chill
As I sit alone on Christmas under a windowsill.
I was alone,
the chill, more piercing now
Reaching my bones.
In houses all around me families sharing love and cheer.
It hurt me so much more to be so near.
Alms, alms just for one warm embrace,
Alms to banish these tears from my face.
Alms, alms to stay strong and endure
Alms, alms, the end is near.
Jun 19, 2017
Jun 19, 2017 at 11:44 PM UTC
Why hello Oregon, my dear old friend... I know it's been a while since we last touched base, but that all changes today... I'm absorbing all things about you... The feel of your cool soil on my bare feet, the roughness of your bark as I swing from your oldgrowth arms and glide into a crystal clear pool at the base of one of your majestic snowcapped peaks.. I am bursting with the anticipation of ending the day drunk on your honey sun shine and high off of your cologne of wild lavender, fresh water and ancient pines.. Momentarily, I am perfectly content to relax in your soothing cooling shade and listen to the harmony of your whisperig breezes, humming birds, buzz of the bumble bees, and the trickle of your cool bubbling brook... No, I am no poet, just a natural born pacific northwesterner.. Can I help it if the raw beauty of my surroundings drives and inspires me occasionally?
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 4:16 PM UTC
~
Passion’d Mountain Top
The air is so much thinner here
Miles find my eyes gazing,
valleys wave in gardenia gestures
and foot prints form in seeking patterns
Smooth stone of rain drop kisses
falls steep in overwhelming beauty
as I reach for a few more steps
of overlooking apex in snowcapped dreams
From this height far above
the sleeping village and sunset ribbons
I can see, more than the mind can imagine
yet not father than my soul can reach
As heart beats in mosaic designs
echo from peak to peak,
they flow on zephyrs of silver clouded beauty,
settling upon your tender skin
Always when twilight horizons form in the east
and starlight canopies unfold
my love soars on breathless whispers
from this passion’d mountain top…endlessly to you
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 10:19 AM UTC
I don’t know water that’s crystal blue
To completely lose myself into
I don’t know snowcapped mountains too
How about, what about you?
Serenity isn’t a place I know
It’s somewhere I never go
Serenity isn’t a thing for me
It’s a place that I’ll never be
My spot will never be serine
It’s just a space I’ll never see
I don’t know city lights so bright
Never seen the Grand Canyon in sight
I don’t know grass green and tall
A farm life, that is free for all
Serenity isn’t a place I know
It’s somewhere I never go
Serenity isn’t a thing for me
It’s a place that I’ll never be
My spot will never be serine
It’s just a space I’ll never see
I don’t know heaven
But I wish they’d let me
Serenity isn’t a place I know
It’s somewhere I never go
Serenity isn’t a thing for me
It’s a place that I’ll never be
My spot will never be serine
It’s just a space I’ll never see
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 3:27 AM UTC
From the lofty snowcapped peaks
of Kilimanjaro
The morning mist envelopes its verdant foothills in a tight embrace,
No need to hurry, this is not a race,
Beads of sunlight dancing across the glistening dew.
As the plains of Amboseli reveal their golden hue,
There's movement spied where none existed moments prior,
A herd of Zebra lounging in their elegant attire,
The lush grasslands beckoning them for yet another day.
The few Wildebeest amongst them if only they could talk they'd say,
We're happy to be safe in this weird and motley crowd,
Despite the fact these Zebras are so boisterous and loud,
What's a little banter when the promise is of grazing in contented peace.
Double is their luck as the pert Egyptian geese
Act as wary Sentinels, their honks resounding loud,
Alerted by the pride of crouching lions, their countenance so proud,
Scouting for that meal for their young to feed.
A Wildebeest or two would fill those hunger pangs indeed,
Were it not for those Hyenas prowling on their scent,
To steal their hard-fought prize definitely hell bent,
Neither party cowered, neither will give
ground.
But what's a little tiff when prey does so abound,
A fragile land of bounty, God's country that's for sure,
Where every single creature finds ways to gainfully endure,
Africa in all its glory, nature’s living work of art.
Jun 29, 2024
Jun 29, 2024 at 8:37 AM UTC