| The Man: | The Boot: |
| |
| I hurled what was left of them | big boys tongue tied, slap flap soles, soul |
| |
| shredded waffle rubber, duct tape | combat stomp Mongol hurl |
| |
| broken laces, sweat-stained leather | wall wall wall wall |
| |
| off the top | climbing on the wall wall wall |
| |
| of the Great Wall of China | death of the sole |
| |
| deep in the back-country, 4 days of steep climbing | pounded into saying goodbye |
| |
| up and down, the wall mostly rubble | giving up the ghost |
| |
| walking and climbing | feet are swords pulled from stone |
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| treading stone needing stone | kingmakers, empire |
| |
| a thousand years to carry rock up the mountain | blisters like signal fires |
| |
| then a thousand years to cool the stone with wind | redemption of the tongue |
| |
| villagers carried water to us up the mountain | she said gweilo ghost people foreign devils |
| |
| on their backs | gweilo |
| |
| they called us gweilo | gweilo |
| |
| tied together, the boots whirled | Kamakazi toes that’s Japanese |
| |
| ecstasy of footwear released, absolution | machine gun boots army boots |
| |
| RIP for the next two thousand years | no quit |
| |
| an archeologist will dig them up | boot boot boot |
| |
| declare evidence of Bigfoot | yearning of the boot the tulip faced foot |
| |
| carry on, rock time, rock time | nothing but time on the wall |
| |
| nothing but time on the wall | stone, step, stone, step |
qbit 
An intriguing presentation. I like the two responses. So good to read.
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Thank you!!
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tulip faced foot!
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Right? LOL!
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Many layers to this conversation. The grunt with his oppressed feet. Campaigns to elsewhere. One man’s broken shoelace as another boot’s swordless shoe. Americans with locals, humans with geology. Step by step.
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When I lived in China, every weekend I would take a bus to some remote part of the wall and bend into the rock – sometimes rubble, sometimes many miles of stairs and walls and forts. It saved my sanity, maybe even my health, to escape the pollution and congestion of Beijing. Plenty of time to contemplate time. A ghost person walking with ghosts. The rock finally destroyed my good ‘ol boy Colorado hiking boots, stopped this foreigner’s invasion, if for a bit. I’ve wondered for years how I might write a requiem. Thank you for that opportunity.
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Farewell boots, ye served its doggies well.
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And doggerel.
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Your comment gave me the backstory… I like the rhythm of the boots’ thoughts, kind of in time to the walking. And the lines that resonate in both streams of thought.
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Thanks. I debated putting the backstory out there, trying to keep the poem on its own terms, but OK.
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And I too prefer leaving poems there without the additional details .. my first read drew the same reactions, but your explanation only added your familiarity with the wall, which made me read it again…
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Cool.
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The back and forth, the up and down .. the dizzying effect/impact of your thoughts/words.. the way I read it first time, second, third.
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I’m flattered you even got through it once!
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Hey Crazylegs, you had me at “Mongol hurl”!
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Wahahaha! I’m glad you liked that.
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These boots were made for writing huh? Fascinating poetic dance…a kind of contrapuntal in my reading, which was all ways up and down.
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Thanks!
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Uniquely presented – the double voice is thought-provoking. Became even more when I reread it from the bottom, upward, since that is how we climb. Works both ways. Ascent & descent, just as our lives are.
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Ok, wow. Triple points for the bottom up climbing read. I did not even think of that.
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Cool format! I played through various patterns to see what would happen. A toss-up between jigsaw poetry and the worse beat poetry ever. But following Robert’s Rules of Order In Verse moving poem, Randall.
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Roberts Rules of Order!!! Fantastic.
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