The Fog

October 2017

#106

 

The Fog

Here it comes
Stealthily rolling in
Slowly enveloping all in its path

Masking

Concealing

Overwhelming

Disorientating

It is the silent ghost
Whose cold icy touch frays the nerves

It is as all of your fears returning to haunt you
Will you get what you deserve?

It is the hands of father time
Reaching out to claim you
The souls of the past
The clouds that mist your dreams
It is…
The Fog

Antony Martin John May
Shorelink Writers & G.R.O.W.

 

The Fog

It's a peasouper when we can't see
beyond our nose, where nostrils puff
at an abrupt nothingness. We stare
as if we ought to see, and understand,
the carbon veil laced to our eyes,
but visibility is poor; we hear diesels,
smell smoke, and wonder otherwise.

Bruce Barnes
Friend of TheFED

 

The Fog Toward Greylock

Driving through the Mohawk Trail
Overlooking the Housatonic River
Water flowing besides you
As you are climbing hills and valleys
Filled with fog
On the ancient road
At the top of the rise
As long as the trees have stood
A universal blues of John Coltrane’s “Autumn Serenade”
The smell of myrrh oil as nature surrounds you
A sentimental everlasting stormy weather of
Lena Horne’s 100th year earth day
It could be enough to make you look down
From a distant past
As Vicentico Valdes’ bolero “Vaya P’al Monte”
As we stand besides the stars
The piano lifts a rhythm note
To honor Thelonious Mink’s 100th year earth day
Around About Midnight and Dear Ruby
And your heart sings in joy
On that very moment in time
Arriving at Mount Greylock
I paid a visit to the past
Standing at the summit
While listening to Clifford Brown blow a sweet bebop note
Of joy spring
Deep in the soul
And on that seventh day of evergreen
Dancing bebop to honor Dizzy Gillespie’s 100th year earth day
With a Night of Tunisia
And Chano Pozo lifting the beat of the batá drum
With Manteca p’a ti y mantexca p’a mi
At sunset at the Great Falls Word Festival
At Turners Falls, Massachusetts, here we are
With our banner of love
Performing a justice peace poem
With the family
And on this Bread is Rising holiday
Sitting beside the Atlantic Ocean
As we sit and listen to Marshall Allen Sun Ra Arkestra
In our yearly ritual
Blowing in an in-between Mr Mystic and we are traveling the spaceways
At Snug Harbor in Staten Island
And beside the tube on the evening news of BBC
That Fats Domino has returned as an ancestor
Besides Blueberry Hill

© Carlos Raúl Dufflar 10/27/17
The Bread is Rising Poetry Collective

 

Standing Here In The Woods

It is all around me
It is getting near
I can't see anything
I tremble in fear.

Moving down
Then creeping closer
My tummy turns
Like a roller coaster.

It is thick and hazy
No one's around.
Standing all alone.
Without a sound.

The night's darkness, starts to appear.
The deep dark night skies are here.

I see the stars.
Through a sheet of white.
But all else vanishes.
Nothing left in sight.

The temperature falls.
I hear leaves blowing.
Is anyone around.
There is no way of knowing.

Standing here in the woods.
Creepy but still.
A little scared if I’m honest.
That's how I feel.

I try to walk out of the woods.
I stumble over a log.
How the world changes.
When you’re surrounded by FOG.

Claire Victoria Sutton
WOW

 

Shrouded

Falling, swirling
swallowing the city
thick grey fog
coal fired chimineys
belch black smoke

strangers footsteps echo
breaking the eerie silence
dimly lit torches reflect
blue haze, golden halo

a solitary girl
weighed down by a heavy basket
walking cautiously
with an air of one who knows
her destination,remains
where the shadows are the deepest
hesitating unsure of her way
panicked by stygain darkness

obliterated street names
well trodden pathways; hidden
familliarity gone

Pauline Faulkner
WOW

 

Life

I am partially sighted
Hearing impaired
and disabled.
Fog gets in my way
Glaucoma is like the fog
A frosty window
I cannot see
But the fog is worse for me
Especially when smog comes our way
I look out of my window 
Early in the morning 
Nothing can I see
I wonder always 
If sighted people can see
Of course they can
I know, I had sight before now
My hearing, it is a fog, 
like my sight
it fades sometimes
it deafens the world about me
My disabilities, mobility hardly none
So all in all
The fog takes my life
But listen, I delegate 
My brain works through words given
Fog, or no fog
Words tell my story
and, sometimes
They fictionalise 
and fog becomes
frothy white
Like clouds in the sky
How do I know?
Once upon a time
I could see.

(C) Josie Lawson 11/10/2017 All Rights Reserved
GROW

 

Waves Of Emotion

The sea appears ghostlike
From under the blanket of mist
Its waves gently rising
Gently falling, until…
It stealthily reaches the shore
Encroaching; Encompassing;
Possessing all within its grasp
Until… At the turn of the tide
It leaves as ghostly and
As gently as it came.

The sea rages forth
Beneath the stormy clouds
Its waves violently crashing
Violently pounding, until…
It throws itself on to the shore
Forcefully; Fiercely;
Powerful in its intent
Until… At the turn of the tide
Against its will, it retreats
Its mighty force spent.

The sea mirrors the blue sky
In the reflection of the baking sun
With hardly a wave at all
It lazily, seductively laps
At the foot of the golden shore
Luxuriantly; Lusciously;
Romantic in its embrace
Until… At the turn of the tide
It yields to its masters call
And the spell is broken.

Jan Hedger
WOW

 

The Fog

Brain empowers the world
Languages instilled
The Fog feels as though draining
The brain, when illness arrives.
Sensations of pressure,
Tiredness, oxygen delivers a nothing world -
Then awake, oxygen delivered the frame,
To include heavy breathing -
To find the truth of peace
A smile, oxygen settled.
The fog continues,
Away from the storm
Tears find smiles
Oh, the sensation
Gone is the fog
Awareness of joy
And then the fog, is no more...

(C) Josie Lawson All Rights Reserved
GROW

Closing Muscles In The Fog

All the way down the fog drops to the ground
Gathering spreading drifting-in silent
In the head-light glare blinded solid
Nothing seen in the thick blocking fog
Temperatures drop in the freezing wraps
Rails begin lifting back mountain tops
Lost in the blinding foggy daze awake
To gather the event in the steps taken out
The hours previous before the fog dawned
Floating across the sight inner eye drops
Heavy on the beach tide sounds undisturbed
Slowly seashore life carries waves wash
The horizon ship heard in the fog-horn breath
The seas of calm fish lapping in the fog

John Joseph Sheehy