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Likestarlings is a place for talking in poems. We pair poets with poets and they write a sequence of six new works by responding in turn to one another. Our palaver blog goes beyond poetry to discuss collaboration in theory and in practice. Please take a look, and feel free to add comments, opinions and suggestions here. Read poems here
 

Against the mountaineers


Disastrous mountaineers with your boyfriends
And girlfriends weeping later in documentaries
While slightly better looking actors impersonate
You in your final moments: Do you wake, as I do,
At 4:36am with the ability to see through your own hand?
How about when you realise nobody’s forcing you?
Yes, the mountain looks lovely from a distance,
Almost invisible against the music festival,
Same colour as the diet slate sky,
But do you look up and see one painfully slow
Technologically augmented foot sticking
Into some gravelly snow over and over again?
With so much equipment and £million research,
Might you not just use a helicopter?
I hope, when you achieve the summit
There is a fat mountain eagle waiting for you
With his beak that doesn’t shut properly
Just like your screen door back home.
I hope you get mustard on your flag
And once you have gone the eagle eats it.