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JK Nov 2021
I woke up
before the sun did.

Purple darkness blotted my vision
as I rolled out from under the
warm comforter.

The cold air seeped
through my sweater
the closer I padded to
the window.

Parting the curtains a crack,
I looked out to the parking lot
of the motel.

Thick, greenish-white mist
enveloped the pine trees
and the lonely car shop
across the street.

It was like looking through
a frosted glass shower door.

Fog comes on little cat feet?
More like huge tiger paws.
The paws of a white tiger,
looking for lost prey.

Too bad for the tiger,
I'm too smart to get lost.
I stayed inside.
AE Sep 2021
Dust settles between this continental divide
I, on one end, a fleeting candle wick
Burning slowly, hopelessly against this cold
And time, like fallen clouds,
Does everything to hide the sun.

I practice dancing to sounds of silence
Distances become all too familiar
and like melted wax, I fall to the floor

hoping that before you walk away
you will break this barricade of silence
that time has built around us
Taylor St Onge Aug 2021
The fog here is thick, until you step into it.  
The storm rages until you get to its eye.  
I wish this same principle could be said of me, too.  
But like a gas giant, you could slip right through me with
                         the smallest amount of pressure.
There is no calming sense of self at the core.
Gravity does not apply to me.

There’s a boat on the lake cutting through the fog.  And then nothing.  
                                                      ­                                    More waves.  
                                                        ­            More birds.  
              The fog covers it all up again.  
The sun slinks and the tide comes in, or is it out?  Does it matter?  
The moon controls it in some way—the push, the pull of the waves.
At least the lake looks blue today,
                           looks green today.
The geese are in the water now.  The families are packing up.  
                             The ice cream shop is closing.

And I do not remember if I was ever here with you.  
                                This, of course, is a collective you.  
Could mean you, my reader,
                                               could mean one specific person,
                                               or two
                                                             ­       or three
                                                                ­                          or four;
could be whoever I'm thinking of when I reread this to myself.  
That’s the funny thing about the litany of loss.  
                                           It all starts to congeal.  

Waves crash against the rock.  Starts to chip away, create something new.
                                                      That’s what memory does.
It’s not permanent.  It’s malleable.  
Flexible.        Bendable.        Moldable.  
It smells like lakewater.  Like
                                                  fish and sand and mud and
                            gulls and rocks and shells and
     algae and fog—thick, thick fog.  
Smell is supposed to be one of the biggest memory triggers, and yet
                                       I cannot place a single memory of you here.
                                                    And that’s mildly crushing.  

So I would take you here:
                                              to where I wish the air was
                                                       saliter and less earthy.  
                                              to where I come sometimes to think.  
                                              where the clouds are so thick and puffy and
                                                            the setting sun makes them look like                                                                cotton candy on the Fourth of July.
                                              where the sun’s reflection on the water
                                                                ­      turns the green lake pink.  
                                              where the geese are back out of the water and
                                                                                                     onto the shore.
I would take you here with me.  
Into a new memory.  
                                      Homemade.        Handmade.        DIY.
write your grief prompt #14: imagine writing a letter to the one you have lost, what would you show them?
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2021
Of ***** roasting pans and racks and island fog!

if you love me, then you know poems wright themselves when standing, driving, bus riding, love-making and especially when
doing manly battle, ******* ***** dishwashing midst island fog

a passing remark goes noticed and summoned to a
Friday night feast, roasted fowl, wild rice with golden raisins and mushrooms, English spring peas, was it a Montrachet?

for dessert the washing up is obligation mine, a traditional desertion,
separation of church and state, her cooking a church  in which I worship, she states eloquently:
“Unto Caesaria , Render Her the cleanup”

this is hand to hand combat, no dishwasher mechanical
can scrub like the human hand, and with body english,
water hot, but no gloves employed for this is ***** man’s work,
not for sissies, cleaning roasting pans and roasting racks
that are at least twenty years burnt and crusted with a blackened
finish, residue of other lovers and dinners P.N. (pre-nat)

array three kinds of sponges and some human & metallic *****,
no one asking which came first,
the scrubbing away of life feasting residues,
or the poem writing that comes with pre & postscript sleepiness

when I say the dark stains and the grease buildup are
flavor enhancers, am beknighted with starry stares of
“how stupid do you think I am?” and sadly return to the
Battle of Agincourt, the one the American lost….



but they do source poems that flavor life

2020
*sometime last year?
AE Jul 2021
You stand at a crossroads
unsure of where to step
the night is too dark
The day is always accompanied by fog
at a street corner marked by time
Where moonlight collides with your midnight blues
Jay M Jun 2021
A great blanket atop the quiet homes
Flowing without fault or try
A beautiful grey gradient
From the heavens to the Earth
Cascading into the land
Rolling in without a sound

A veil ever lingering
Pierced by everything but nothing
Existing in what would appear to be a stand-still
Only to be moving ever so slowly
All about without any care or doubt

As the great body roams
There isn’t need to scream or cry
The sunlights reflection ever so radiant
Just softer than a grand hearth
To heat the frigid hand
That holds firmly to the ground

Surrounding the daily mingling
Noticing the hills and something
Just beyond the rocky hill
A call ever lowly
Unsure of the words to be made out

Chilling, perhaps even ghostly
Figures in the gleam
So calm and so serene
Taking in the morning glow
Before the fog will surely go

- Jay M
June 24th, 2021
There was a lot of thick fog this morning! It was beautiful- ethereal, even.
Viseract May 2021
Mist-minded, clouded thoughts
Can't seem to focus, or keep rapport
Importance is relevant, irrelevant I dwell
In this cartography, well-drawn Hell

Zipped up lips, verbiage tripped
The spoken, delivery, edge unclipped
Harsh and cold, worn limestone
Regardless of polish, I'm overgrown

What feels real is this heart of steel
All else surrounds, of fabric, of gown
Dressed up nice to masquerade
False-tipped smiles, dead parade.

The forge burns true, just underneath
My love, my Sun, I shall bequeath
Hardened and cold, aftermath of the craft
Add a little heat and reveal my heart.
Reality can feel like the worst illusion, but when it fades, my heart awaits
Jaicob Apr 2021
Drowsily dreaming the dreary day away,
I lean 'gainst the sill, looking out on the city.
Deep sighs cascade from my open mouth
Before I close my eyes and hum a diddy,
Remembering the people who've shown me pity,
As the train rattles on heading south.
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