Christmas Abbott

More than muscle

More than skill

It’s the spirit

The spirit and the mind

Working as one

That has to be tapped into

From Archimedes to Stephen Hawking

Exceptional people

I believe

Have done just this!!!  

Abbott is an artisan of the body

Sculpting muscle and tissue

With weights of steel 

As well as Da Vinci

Sculpting in his medium of marble

And again

I say

I believe

It all has to start by tapping into

The spirit and mind

You see

Sometimes you have to sail away

From who you think you are

To become something better

Like Gauguin

Moving away

To create his perfect art 

We must move away from who we are

To what we can be

Move in our thinking  

Tapping into one’s self

For the first time

Is like tapping into the words of Emerson

Something moves within you so fast

Like Jesse Owens going for the gold

You will realize

What power lies within our dreams

Abbott wasn’t born a Crossfit fine-tuned machine 

Or

A NASCAR superstar

No more than Franco Columbu

Woke up one day a weightlifting champion

Hard work gets you where you want to go!!!

But you have to want to get there

And again

I say

I believe

It all starts in the spirit and mind

Believing in yourself

In anything you choose to do!!!

Christmas Abbott pushing steel

Pushing her way to the top

An inspiration for us all

To do more than just getting by 

Tandem Movement

Tandem movement toward the machine

We walk

For

We are the machine

Our eyes move back and forth

On the world we see each day

If think Thoreau was frustrated with man’s greed

Back in his time

With wars waged without ever thinking of peace

With the natural world being

Eroded away for its resources 

He’s probably now doing backflips in his coffin

It seems people are either  

Racing through each step of the day

Or moving at a turtle’s pace

Yet, most all are glued to their phones

Waiting for the next bell to chime

Like rats in a maze we’ve become  

It’s up to you to set the pace

With which way when, where, and why??? 

Some are driven

To do more than just getting by

Following their passion

Not tuning it out like an old transistor radio

And tuning into someone else’s achievements

Clicking their approval

Then swiping to the next story 

There’s a few writing their own

Blazing their next path

Honing their skills, their skills they do hone

Like the great  

Neo Nadi notably knowing who to poke next

With his silvery sword outstretched

It’s never luck, you know?

When you’re willing to push yourself to exhaustion

Horseshoes won’t get you to the top of a mountain

They’re just more added weight to carry

A Rabbit’s foot wasn’t so lucky for the rabbit

It was chopped from

Black Cats 

Broken mirrors

Shattered reflections of 13

For, luck changes each time you look upon it

So does the world as

Our eyes move back and forth

Watching

The tandem movement toward the machine

STOP, like Thoreau and look right in front of you!!!

See truths for yourself

Not what someone tells you to be true

Viruses know no skin color

No political affiliation or origin of birth

They’re only looking for a host

The bear, the big cats of the savannah

Are just as colorblind

They know nothing of someone’s pigment or ideology

Humans are the only species

That practice prejudice to perfection

The snake strikes the foot that steps on its back

Not the feet that walk around him

The wolf hunts the weak

Not the opposite refection of him  

Our eyes move back and forth

On the world we see each day

Live your life in truth and change things for the better

For, others have you in their vision

As their eyes move back and forth 

On the world they see each day

Red Rountree

Think?

Really, THINK?

What will be your last swan song?

Red’s was robbing banks at 91

Crazy old man some would say

But

Some would say anything to downplay

His Jesse James ways 

Red followed the law for most of his life

Then in the end

The law followed him

Blue-lighted

Pulled over

His hands stretched high in the air

Some would say Red

Was wasting his last years

Robbing relentlessly running

From the long arm of the law

But

Some say things they know nothing about

Yes, his last breaths were taken

Inside the cold walls of a prison

Not dying a free man

Yet, some know nothing of what it is to truly be free

Never stepping out of

Their self-created

Comforted jail cells

Living

In the safety

Of a boxed-in reality

Far from living at all

Red may have died locked away behind bars

But he lived more than some will ever know

Yes

Some prefer shadowboxing

Within their perfect life boundaries

Fetching the morning paper and waving to the neighbors

Robbing not banks but something far worse

Robbing themselves of a life truly lived

Never knowing adventure

Fear or excitement

Never stopping to see

Something as simple as a sunset

Wasting away in the safety of their shell

Retracting like snails at the first signs of different

Yes, time wasted not living your life   

Has to be

The biggest crime of them all!!!

Fingerprints of Yosemite

The kings and queens of Yosemite

Who’ve climbed her mighty walls

Of stone

Will live on forever

Within her legends

Within her whispering winds 

Blowing high above the valley floor

Robbins and Harding

Bridwell and Bachar

Fingerprints of Yosemite, fingerprints on stone

Pushing ever higher

Into the unknown

Johnson and Kauk

Potter and Caldwell 

Rutherford and Davis    

Harrington and Hill

Fingerprints of Yosemite, fingerprints on stone

Their upward assent

Their attack on the walls

Going up, up, up

The vertical pathway  

With its

Sun-splashed granite rock face

Growing

Into a cloud covered tower of the sky

Breathtaking for the beholder!!! 

Chalk covered hands

Gripping with fingers of steel

Quick clicks of the Quick Draws

Lifelines when something goes wrong

Fingerprints of Yosemite, fingerprints on stone

These masters of the high walls

I believe

Are folks

That have never gone halfway with anything

All the way people, or nothing at all

Fingerprints of Yosemite, fingerprints on stone

Here For The Stay

It seems only a handful

Are here for the stay

Never wasting their

Moment in time

Their

Many moments of madness made possible

By actually living their life so alive

Not wasting it

Watching it drift by

With what ifs

And what could have been

Maybe this is why I love them so?

Yet, they’re almost always looked upon

By the status quo

As wasting it all

For living their life to the fullest

Yes, some are here for the stay

Hell, we all are, I guess

It’s what we do while we’re here that matters

Yes

Guessing

Is all we’re ever really doing anyways

From the genius to the dullard

No one has any real proof of anything

Yet

Most everyone has explanations for it all

And all believe their’s is the right one

All the way down to the

Weatherman whispering which way the wind will blow

Tomorrow is all still just

A flip of the coin

A coin flipping

End over end over end

And

Again and again and again

Today is all we can ever be sure of

And it changes by the minute

So live it!!!