Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Africa, mountaineering, mountains, Mt Kilimanjaro, Poetry, Tanzania, Travel, Travel writing, trekking on 09/11/2011| Leave a Comment »
28. Tanzania (Mt Kilimanjaro)
One foot (breathe)
in front of (huff)
the other (gasp).
Sucking at the thin air.
Boots d-r-a-g-g-i-n-g heavily through chunks of dirty ice and loose volcanic gravel.
My body as leaden as my head is light.
Summiting in Kilimanjaro’s numbing dawn,
5895 metres above the baking African savannah.
Woo-(wheeze)-hoo!
jpm
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged Borneo, Gunung Mulu National Park, leeches, Malaysia, Poetry, Sarawak, The Pinnacles, Travel, trekking, walking on 26/10/2011| 1 Comment »
26. Malaysia (The Pinnacles, Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak)
Four days jungle walking
(raining).
I creep out at night for a pee,
crouching over the steaming leaf mould
(it’s raining).
A hundred scrawny, starving leeches
LEAP to attention,
their infrared sensors focussed single-mindedly on my warm bum
(still raining).
The race is on: first to the finish line wins!
jpm
Posted in Poetry, Travel, Travel Writing, tagged backpacking, Iceland, Icelandic sagas, Poetry, Travel, Travel writing, trekking, Vatnajokull Glacier on 24/08/2011| Leave a Comment »
17. Iceland (near the Vatnajokull Glacier)
When the world was just begun,
the earth shifting and heaving, steaming and bubbling,
untrodden and newborn.
Verdant Green.
Vast and sweeping landscapes.
Still to be known, but with tomorrow’s breath.
Cerulean Blue.
Unsung, yet already heroic.
And utterly solitary.
Glacial White.
This, then, is the first saga of Iceland.
jpm
50 words for 50 countries 