Wall of Ice
I have met an icy barrier
On this pleasant journey Life
That has tried to freeze my spirit
In its paralyzing vise.
Like an animated iceberg
Sporting crystal hands and feet—
Like a SEAL that’s on a mission
It intends to bring defeat.
In its fist, it kinked the lifeline
That sustains the warmth of Life
Blowing, breathing icy vapors
Choking out the warmth and spice.
With its love of all things frigid
Sheets of sleet it slung at me
As I faced this frosty monster
For a time, I could not see.
Blocking blows with frozen forearms
Fighting hard to stay alive—
Throwing jabs with icy fingers
Hoping only to survive—
Dancing ‘round this glacial giant
Ducking, moving out then in
I left all but faith behind me
In my fierce attempt to win.
As I blocked, then dodged and grappled
With this polar avalanche
Only for a numbing instant
Did this villain stand a chance,
With a fake, a lunge, a tackle
With the clock about to stop
I engaged this mega-monster
Dealing him a blazing shock.
To the sounds of desperate conflict
To my call for Higher aid
Came a rush of summer breezes
Charging through the icy glade.
As its artic sinews yielded
To the stronger will of spring
Streams of icy muscle fibers
Pooled in puddles in the ring.
Where the fight had been the fiercest
Where the land was locked in ice
Now a balmy, fertile valley
Yields its crops of grain and spice.
Though I’ll stay forever altered
Scarred by winters numbing brand
In a pool of melted monster
Stands a stronger, wiser man.
A Poet’s Lament
The rhymes, the lines, the couplets that I cluster
The metered troops of poetry I muster
Have met the catastrophic fate of Custer.
External cares attack like greedy Pharaohs
Whose heartless warriors shoot their poisoned arrows
And drop my thoughts mid-flight like skewered sparrows.
The hype of newness is no longer stirring
Hard work and inspiration stopped conferring
My strength to higher wages is deferring.
This talent, though it drips like golden honey
And wafts my soul to regions warm and sunny,
It fellowships the guild of phantom money.
Yet what to do to stop the thoughts from flowing
To stop this disenchantment that keeps growing.
James Bontrager was born and raised near the rural town of Bonduel, Wisconsin. He currently lives in Ontario, California. He is part of one of several project management teams that works for a construction company. Very recently he published a book of his poetry through the Hustlin’ Backwards Entertainment organization.
Your “Wall of Ice ” is an outstanding and truly “chilling ” poem that most readers can identify with at some point in life.
James, these poems are energizing. The perfect pace and powerful words of “Wall of Ice” convey strength, masculinity, action, and leadership. Your tercets and rhymes of “A Poet’s Lament” make the poem fresh.
Wall of Ice: You turn personal struggle into a gripping, cinematic battle that keeps the reader engaged from the first blow to the final victory.
A Poet’s Lament: Your poem speaks with honesty about the quiet cost of devotion to art, and that sincerity gives it real emotional weight. If only we could be wealthy by writing…perhaps we are.
James, “The Wall of Ice” is a great metaphor for what I internalize as writer’s block. Sometimes writing about it is the way to melt the monster. “A Poet’s Lament” to me is about writing talent which we believe to be “golden” and yet we must lament where is the money. Both poems have excellent imagery, and your talent is revealed to the rest of us.
Masterful creation and consistent use of your poetic line in “Wall of Ice,” James. The allegory of combat is unexpected, since an iceberg is usually an unassailable force. You perspicaciously identify that force with vice, while characterizing its operation as that of a constricting mechanical vise. Good addition of another kind of fight imagery with the clock, as if in a ring with a referee. The clock introduces the question of time: how long will the fight last? To answer this, you introduce season images, which support the idea that the fighter relying on his faith must nonetheless look and wait for help outside himself. The fine conclusion presents victory for a victor who has both overcome his enemy and strengthened himself.
“The Poet’s Lament” is a rare sonnet in rhymed tercets, leaving the reader to wonder at the conclusion. The fourteen lines are complete, but where is the third rhyme for that last group of lines? You thus treat your theme in a forward looking and hopeful manner, with “flowing” and “growing” anticipating more to come despite difficulties outlined.
Thank you to all for taking time to respond!! Margaret, thank you for your insightful breakdowns. Not being much of an analyst myself, I love hearing the Analyst’s perspective which often reveal tidbits I hadn’t even noticed as I was writing.
Most of us can relate to ‘A Poet’s Lament’, though through disillusionment comes much of our more honest poetry.
Beyond the metaphor and personification, ‘Wall of Ice’ is a tale of resilience against what life has to throw against us that rings with the truth of autobiography.
Thanks for the reads, James.