Aspen Misc: Poets Among Us

With people laying low with extra time because of the coronavirus, we’ve received a few poem submissions last week. Below is a sampling.

Commander in Tweet

He is a Bullet Proof

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Egomaniac …

He is Teflon coated

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Nothing sticks

Cause nothing means

Anything to him

While every body else

Is selling toilet paper

On the streets

A dollar a sheet

The little birdie

In his head

Tweet..tweet..tweet

Hinton Harrison

Aspen

The Fog

I’d like to share a poem written by Chapin Wright during his Outward-Bound School in Maine, 1971:

“Mother nature has let us flounder all night lost in the fog. We fight our way, she is telling us with the fog that life is not always a direct sighting. You don’t always know where you are or where you are going. You can only keep fighting on, with a smile, until it breaks, and the new light is seen. Then you are on your way again, it may be in a new direction, but it is life. Thanks for the fog …”

I am writing on behalf of the Chapin Wright/Flatirons board. We are in the process of reading the applications for the 2020 recipient of this scholarship. Unfortunately, Chapin was tragically killed in an automobile accident on the way to the senior party. The scholarship committee felt that Chapin exemplified the qualities that the scholarship represents and to this day the scholarship has been renamed in his memory. The criteria for the scholarship is: an Aspen High School senior who shows qualities of leadership, in the areas of the athletic, academic and within the social fabric of the high school community.

This year all of the board members at different times have been wanting to read and reread this poem. It was written when Chapin was 18 years old. How relevant it was when he wrote it in 1971 and how it is seems even more relevant today. We have to believe that the fog will lift and somewhere, somehow while we are in the fog, the world will be a better place when it lifts.

Lorna Petersen, Aslaug Wright, David Guthrie, Bob Starodoj, Rob Gile, Lisa Thorpe, Roger Marolt and Ben Hall

Aspen

Vertigo rules

Vertigo … vertigo … is it yes or is it no?

Are you sick … am I well?

How in hell can we tell

When getting tested is so slow

You don’t know, I don’t know

What to do … where to go?

No wonder we’ve got vertigo

The economy, you and me

So, confused we’re all dizzy

Showmanship ain’t leadership

More BS means less progress

The number of deaths is sure to swell

If we don’t wash our hands real well

Hospitals don’t have the space

So, quarantine the human race

Life is now upside down

And lies won’t turn all this around

Blame this … blame that

Complete confusion is where we’re at

Cause all we know is vertigo

Vertigo … vertigo … is it yes or is it no?

Are you sick … am I well?

How in hell can we tell

Ignorance isn’t bliss

They want to wash their hands of this

You don’t know, I don’t know

If death will end our vertigo

Greg Lewis

Woody Creek