The mountain is there to be climbed
The weather its own
Maybe violent maybe calm
Funny like Cagney
“Ma, Top of the World!”
We are its guests
The soon to be honoured dead should it decide,
To object to our trespass
To growl and bite back
Conquerors in oxygen masks and with frost-bitten toes;
Are mere Yankee doodles in gangster shoes and clothes
Funny like Cagney
Heroes die as easily as unclean rats
Svengalis, deities, autocrats
The mountain does not forgive
It just is
White heat
© Trevor Maynard from his collection Keep On Keepin’ On ISBN 978-1480052499.
Trevor Maynard is also editor of the anthologies The Poetic Bond
ISBN 978-1466498419 and The Poetic Bond II ISBN 978-1480209732