Foggy ghosts

[DieterM]

In white we trust and black and grey,
tonight as the fog smudges edges
and wipes out straight lines.
The steeple has turned mellow,
the spire wafts and glows
with unfathomable carols
an unseen choir is singing underneath,
or so we choose to believe.
Clouds steam from our mouths
as we don’t talk
for sounds and words have died.
We just gaze
at houses floating by,
at trees drowning in pale silence,
at milky orbs blinking up from hidden streets.
We dream up mountains that fail to show,
we crunch snow that hasn’t fallen.
We stand there – do we really? –,
no more than two thin strands of thought.


(And to all you LitNutters, I wish to send my best wishes for 2013!)

[Dipen Guha]

Good enterprise ! I find flavors of T.S. Eliot and Coleridge. But why did you compose in 19 lines ?

[Delta40]

I love it! This is one of your best Dieter and so oddly contains rhyme where none is overtly apparent which added so well to the atmosphere.

[firefangled]

Well done, Dieter! This flows beautifully to its conclusion. What haunting descriptions.

[Paulclem]

It does flow very well. It has a good sense of mystery about it, and the internal rhymes help it to flow - as has been said above.

[DieterM]

Thanks everyone – I was worried I might have forgotten how to write after such a long time without actually doing it! As for the 19 lines, well, I felt everything was said after 19 lines, and I didn't feel like cutting the lines haphazardly.

[hallaig]

Should you have a comma after 'tonight' in the 2nd line? Makes more sense to me. A steeple 'Turned mellow' sounds wrong to me. Likewise a spire 'wafting...with carols' , whereas 'the spire wafts and glows/ an unseen choir is singing underneath,' sounds better to my lugs. Apart from that I like the oddness of your poem, the number of questions it asks and disnae answer. Good work.