Ph: Echo: Extremes Poem by Brian Johnston

As I cross glacial ice at fifty below,
My spit freezes solid before hitting the ground,
Frozen horizons in a world white with snow,
Even current goals reverberate piano,
Dreaming of all the warmth that I've ever found,
My home in your heart is really all that I know.

At ten thousand feet chute has not shown its face,
After leaving the plane I just feel so alone,
But for air rush - of falling's fact there's no trace.
It is always like that when man and sky embrace,
When my chute opens, near deaf ears turn to stone
And songs of love all seem to have bled into space.

Ninety feet below the sea is quite a thrill,
Colors fade to grey in subterranean light,
Breathing compressed air that could easily kill.
For escaping to care, I remember the drill,
'Keep calm' the rule, death's embrace hidden in fright,
Recalling in depth the buried thrust of my will
 
Birds of paradise dance on jungle stages
In the prurient hope that they can hypnotize.
Seeking a mystical move that engages,
Weird things that no unsotted fool does for wages,
Enticed by a five second chance at glazed eyes.
Makes you wonder in fact what a sage is?

Are we so easily duped by life's antics,
Are both sexes seduced by instinctual charms
Self-talk assuring that we are romantics.
Perhaps we should take time to study semantics
And just why not one of us hears the alarms?
To an alien race we must all seem like hicks!