Ghouls

[DieterM]

It’s the wind,
the cold November wind,
that paints the sky a dark
and rain-streaked grey,
sweeping glossy pavements dirty,
piling leaves on rags
and dead things,
soughing through afternoons
as ominous as our secrets

We've glued smiles,
baleful, cheating smiles,
on our robot faces;
if we expose skin,
it's merely to shake hands,
fleetingly, carefully,
as if we feared that we
might contaminate each other

No one speaks or sings,
it's only coughs,
and throats being cleared,
and someone might sneeze
or sniff or chuckle –
hard to figure
when you lack comparison

There might be laughter somewhere,
in the distance, closer by,
the haunting, hollow laughter
of a madwoman;
yet it might be
just a shriek, too,
a cry of pain that we don’t care
to shrug off

From time to time,
we slap ourselves on our backs
to keep us warm;
from time to time,
we jump on the spot
to chase that crawling sensation
that invades our feet
and stiffens our members

And so we tumble
blind-folded through the city,
a pale crowd, shadow-eyed,
of milky and transparent ghosts,
hundreds, thousands, millions of solitudes;
like mayflies in November,
we flutter and draw
our isolated flight paths

paths that criss-cross
but never,
never ever
touch

[AuntShecky]

I've heard of "bad neighborhoods" before, but this one must top the list! Not an area where one would want to wander through in "blindfolds."

The lines are skillfully rendered, D., but with "sloughing" did you mean a "making a soft, murmuring sound?" Also, check S/V/O agreement in "it's only coughs.": "It's" ( "it is" --singular) while the object "coughs" is plural. The "s" sounds throughout the piece underscore the "sssssinister" atmosphere.

[virtuoso]

You are describing Paris! I have been there a few times. A lot of cold shoulders and snooty looks. I love the way you sum up the poem in the last, two stanzas. The 'isolated minds' are enfolded together on the busy thoroughfare sidewalks of the big city.

[DieterM]

Hey Auntie & virtuoso, thanks for commenting. I don't think I was writing about a particular neighbourhood or city (although yes, it really could be Paris) but more about a general sensation (or mood). Anyway, if some of the lines found an echo within you, I'm pleased :-)

Dear Auntie, you're right about "sloughing" although I guess I will replace the word. It doesn't sound menacing enough. I was thinking aboout "swooshing" but the "oo"-sound is too warm and long. SO I will choose "hissing", where we find the "s" again and a snake-like, not too pleasant image.
As for your comment about "it's" followed by a plural noun (or rather: several plural nouns), I confess it's not literary but colloquial; still, it's accepted in grammar although not at all in the sense of an S/V/O agreement as we don't have an "O" with "be" as a verb, now, do we? Just playing the pedantic teaser :-) The better phrasing would be "there are", of course. I will mull it over (with a glass of red wine and a hearty "cheers" to you) ;-)

[AuntShecky]

As for your comment about "it's" followed by a plural noun (or rather: several plural nouns), I confess it's not literary but colloquial; still, it's accepted in grammar although not at all in the sense of an S/V/O agreement as we don't have an "O" with "be" as a verb, now, do we? Just playing the pedantic teaser :-) The better phrasing would be "there are", of course. I will mull it over (with a glass of red wine and a hearty "cheers" to you) ;-)

Oh, yeah, you're right about linking or"copulative" verbs. (No sniggering, please.) They don't take objects the way other verbs do. However because they link one noun (or pronoun) to another, they should agree in number.

[Delta40]

Reminds me of dark early mornings in winter shuffling off to work in the city.

[slipee]

I like it (I do like the notion of ghouls in general). It invokes a memory sense of guilt, reminiscent to drinking all night and doing a walk of shame when the sun rises in the morning. There's an urgency to get back and shed a skin, and not being alone in the disconnection of normality where moral etiquette is still alive with your acquaintances who also partied into the depths of defilement. Attempts to look at the bright side are in vain, morale is too exhausted to pretend anything other than reality at this point (get home, close the blinds, sleep) hehehe.

-Definitely my subjective receipt there, and fortunately resembles only a temporary situation :P

Nicely done btw, visual clarity in my mind reading this.

[DieterM]

If I could thank you for your comments without bumping the poem, I'd do it; it has been read quite a few times and shouldn't be on top again. But on the other hand, I can't be so impolite as not to thank you all for commenting!

[Haunted]

Makes me feel the winter chill as I read this, D. So real:

we jump on the spot
to chase that crawling sensation
that invades our feet
and stiffens our members

You managed so well in transferring the outside cold into your words, and bringing in the human element with hidden humor, the fear to contaminate… and then a rather sober ending. Much enjoyed.