Atop Cerro Negro

The yawning crater feels open and deep,
With an aching blue sky
Atop walls so steep.
We stand at the base and marvel at the size.
Nature’s destructive beauty
Laid bare before our eyes
My hiking boot blisters my heel as I run,
And my bare shoulders too
Blister in the sun
That’s beginning to sink
Toward the distant ocean
But still requires a reapplication of lotion.
At the summit we pause to eat our small meal,
And take pictures to show the exhilaration we feel
To our loved ones at home who won’t really care,
Except to comment on how the wind tousles our hair.
And soon, as we all must, we begin our descent,
And head homewards in jeeps full of bodily scent.

I'm not usually competitive, but...

Okay, so my first time entering a poetry competition yielded no results. That probably should be more demoralising than it is. The rules stated that the entries had to not have been published elsewhere beforehand. I took this to include online media (i.e. this blog), so the poems I entered were a mix of things I either had lying around, finished or semi-finished, and one that I scribbled about ten minutes before the deadline. To be honest, I think that's probably why I don't feel so bad about it. It was a last-minute idea that didn't go as I'd hoped. Oh well.
Anyway, since the competition is now over, I assume it's okay to stick the entries up on the blog, so I'll be doing that over the next few days. Here's the shortest one. I originally wrote it as a song verse, but the rest of the song never got written. It would have been good though, I'm sure of it.

Oh the howling gale blows
But not as loud as my nose
The rain on the windowpane
Could well drive me insane
But that I’m stocked well with porter,
With whiskey and rum,
And I’ll sing songs and tell stories
Until Doomsday comes.