H

Paean to Being

By Alan V. Goldman

​

Slicing through the open sky
Your features give form to
Where there had been only
A devoid expanse without
Character or direction:

Vacant space no more,
Now imbued with design,
Further magnified by suffusion
With the purposeful intent imparted
To your skeletal features by
The climber's many storied travails.

O, if only your features could speak,
They would tell of the desperate
chances
Ventured on your extended flanks,
Imparting human meaning to your Otherwise silent stone.

So your framework has rescued us
from the
bleak environs by furnishing the mise-

en-scene
for climbers to act out their human
dramas
In the blank sky, no longer a desolate
void of
Airy nothingness, but the backdrop
for an active
Part of nature's being.
 

e

Trapped

By Alan V. Goldman

 

Sparkling splendors blinking in the night,

How can they know of our pitiful plight?

 

We cast our eyes upwards in search of solace,

But we know we're trapped out on the lip of this

Lengthy cornice.

 

One ponderous move backwards and we risked all

By triggering the overhanging, unsupported outcrop

Of compressed snow -- so delicate we now barely

Dared to crawl --

 

Frozen in fear lest our creeping cause a

Precipitous, fatal fall, and thus become our

Own springboard propelling us to the unknown

Other side.

 

So we crumpled in terror at our self-made

Predicament 'till we unashamedly cried.

 

Who could save us from our own poor judgment

In striding forward -- drenched in hubris -- drawn on

By the meretricious allure of a shimmering cornice

That stretched out into the blue sky?

 

A cornice that only now we knew it to be, and realized

Threatened to collapse underneath us, for by definition

It wasn't supported by the rock of the mountain such that

We would be mortally imperiled by the pressure of but one

Fateful step that could plunge us to our doom.

 

So we winced when we cast our eyes upwards, but

There was no refuge there:

 

Only inside us could there be the noble humility that

Would enable us, the mountain gods permitting, to

Enter that special space reserved for those who 

Undertake a search for redemption,

 

And were thus willing to wriggle backwards on their bellies --

Without any appeal to a self-serving, saving form of

Grace.

Despondency Challenged

by Alan V. Goldman

​

I sing a song of sullen sadness and woe

That bemoans my anguish, sorrow, and 

Long-forlorn grief, while I languish without

Relief from my rueful lament, tinged with

Regret that my sacrifices taint my triumphs, mar my achievements, and sap my hard-won glories of their latent consoling powers:

 

My grief always prevails in a putrescent sink of
"what ifs"-- for it festers as if in a stopped-up

Cesspool, never draining its overbearing melancholia

So as to fill all my emotions with a perpetual remorse,

Leaving me to marinate in a stew of self-reproach --

 

Except when I think once more on the sharp aspect of your brazenly insolent Northwest face, which smirks at my shortcomings,

And would blithely ridicule all my virulent tribulations, time after time, and then again;

 

Thus infuriating, arousing, and then

Summoning me to marshal all my being to try my fate once more, so as to silence forever your mute challenge:

​

Thus does eternal hope dispel the dreary gloom cast by your silent shadow --

​

    Hope that blinds one and all so as to mask           the true dimensions of your                                    treacherous routes;

​

    Hope that is said to spring eternal, like the            hope born of youth;

​

    Hope that I can meet my self-expectations            on your forbidding flanks while knowing              that these hopeful expectations can all be            dashed by one wave that despair

    weakens my resolve to test the limits of               your pity.

​

O, take pity on me and give me this one last chance to contribute something of value to The life of my mind, and to enable me to touch the inner life of others.

​

___________________________________________

​

​

Into the Realm of the Mountain Gods

By Alan V. Goldman

​

Insolent, you self-exculpate yourself by having to furnish no alibi,

For you are always "there" -- a presence looming above underlings

Who scrape at the sky when they brazenly dare to seek your summit;

 

Little do they know that they are entering a different realm of being or reality

Where one's mind is captured by dwelling in the space of abstract ideas:

The very concept of a summit corrupts the life of their mind by not having

Given fair warning that they are trespassing into the plane of perfection,

 

Of archetypal representations of a perfection that doesn't exist on earth,

And are not meant to be comprehended by mortals whose very presence was not

Foreseen in this wilderness devoid of sentient beings, nor welcome in this

Parnassus of poetic composition.

 

Disappointment at failure to gain the summit is so easily transposed into

Self-castigation for "failure" to achieve mundane goals that are so trivial

In the grand scheme of things that climbing should not be undertaken with

Any expectation of success; indeed, it is the very uncertainty of the outcome

That is the draw of adventure, which must unfold in its own fashion.

 

And the concept of ideal perfection in the mountain realm, existing only outside the mind, remains pristine.

Enduring Love and The Human Condition

By Alan V. Goldman

 

Why do you arouse me with nothing more than the crossing of your legs?

 

Why do you provoke me with nothing more than the sotte voce purr of your throat?

 

Why do you spur me to a feverish pitch with nothing more than the sway of your hips to and fro?

 

How can I fail to alert you to my impulsive urge to lurch for your stimulating figure?

 

And how can I suppress my urgent attraction to your form without alerting your attention to my ceaseless longing,

 

As I also furtively struggled to conceal my would-be innocent, but deceitful glance at the dance floor -- without being caught in the very act of doing so?

 

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Only by cultivating some genuine familiarity on the basis of shared interests

That might deactivate your finely-tuned protective radar, which otherwise would

Unmask the course of my campaign driven by my over-heated vision of your pulsating sway?

 

It's sometimes said that relationships founded on a shared intense experience,

E.g., of a mutual danger [like an accident on a mountain], don't survive the "test of time," but shrivel as the shock of

The shared trauma, without more, inevitably  recedes into oblivion.

 

If that's so, then how much less can a relationship founded merely on some shared

Abstract or vicarious experience of imagined intensity survive, where one based on an actual,

Disastrous life-event inevitably retreats into the recesses of memory?

 

So a lasting relationship must be based not only on superficial attraction, for as we

All have heard, "beauty fades" -- but love must also be based on some shared sense of enduring values

That will ultimately outlast the heat of passion.

The Power of Attraction

by Alan V. Goldman

​

Like a monstrous ogre, you would seem to reject all suitors who brazenly dare

To scale your ramparts without displaying due deference to your imposing bulk;

 

Yet climbers still flock to your faces, ridges, snow fields, and narrow couloirs without invitation, 

Knowing full well the penalty for failure may be the  termination of their relationship with you.

 

Maybe in another ten years?

 

By then your silent power of attraction, like a force-in-being, may have even faded a bit so that I may

Prosecute my campaign to conquer your heights without being overwhelmed and daunted by the grip of your majesty;

 

Unfortunately, though, a mountain's time is reckoned on a different scale than that of a human being's; moreover,

 

Your gravitational-like pull on all who fall within the path of your orbit dissipates as one draws further and further away from your form.

 

Yet when one is subject to your full puissance, your draw is like that of a nubile woman whose beckoning scent potently wafts through the air around her inviting shape -- and it is then that you exert your special "come-hither" quality of attraction that lures every climber to test his mettle.

 

In this manner, the power of attraction mentally outlasts even the decay of age,

So that everyone can entertain thoughts of struggle and conquest no matter the reality of the situation at hand.