New Poetry by James Walton

The I Know a Dead Mountaineer Society, Concedes

The cherry wood honour roll burns air gasping for lettering
a toast for scalers who bathed at the source of the Ganges
just so they could divine is Atman Brahman an answer 

reaching for those beads of months without footing
while Bach parades Air on a G String amid foothills
of ever decreasing amplitude the gold lettering returning

to a powder best left for oxygen yet spent here by prayers
and the ridge line so cold in pre-Winter life of dormant forest 
where a cross of ash is all still present of the weather boards

the wind battered in a calling for membership the entrance 
a question for admittance as the linseed dried of once such lustre
out of a foolish need to tame the replies of seeking pilgrims

who scattered to corners an eternal child’s marble bag leaching
found a way to climb unaided to the nearest heady outcrop
where no direction gains a bearing except for the next one


- © James Walton 2020

James Walton is published in many newspapers, anthologies, and journals. He is the author of four collections of poetry. He can also be found at: https://jameswalton.poetry.blog