PROMPT #411 – FOGGY DAY IN LONDONTOWN

/ Poetic Bloomings

Waking up mornings to some thickly foggy days. Other days are heavily frost laden. Write a foggy or frosty poem. Or write one of each! Make them clearly poetic! A Safeguard prompt would always be a “Fall Back” verse. Time is retreating!

MARIES VERSE:

Steam from the kettle
tells its story of comfort
on my cold window.

(c) Marie Elena Good, 2022

WALTS PIECE:

A BLANKET OF WHITE ON THIS FROSTFUL NIGHT

Oh, how it brightly glistens.
And if you listen very carefully you’ll hear it.
You will hear the Christmas spirit in the sounds of silence.
Peaceful like violins it soothes my weary soul.

This is one of those nights, a night
we look forward to on these frost-filled evenings.
A new layer of beauty lay down to cover
hill and valley, tree and bush. It is the rush

to Christmas that makes this respite most welcome.
I adds a newness, a fresh outlook. The world is clean
and pure and her allure hints at the promise to keeping
her pristine. Very serene, oh how it brightly glistens.

The moon reflects her light making the white blanket
of snow, glow. The shadows are long, but they belong
to add their contrast and make the ground more brilliant.
And the snows are resilient, returning again and again,

an old friend to renew the view and this out man’s spirit.
If you listen carefully, you’ll hear it. The lilting mingling 
of jingle bells. My heart swells with good feelings,
healing the wrongs; making them all right.

For tonight is the night. I will ride with delight
knowing there will be a blanket of white on this frostful night.
A beautiful site, it gives me great pause,
it makes me as happy as it can. I am Santa Claus.

(C) Walter J Wojtanik – 2022

85 thoughts on “PROMPT #411 – FOGGY DAY IN LONDONTOWN”

  1. WINTER’S WILL

    There’s frost outside my window.
    Like winter’s web, it clings, embrace and spreads.
    There’s frost outside my window.
    Who knew it would come on this very, very day?
    There’s frost outside my window.
    Freeze’s crystalline breath laid to rest and play.
    There’s frost outside my window.
    A sure sign that winter’s will is here to stay.

    Benjamin Thomas

  2. Vapors Unalike

    Fog is soft
    Frost is rigid.

    Fog, it curls, a bag of damp,
       a blanket uncomforting,
        a tenuous camp of quiet,
       words of poems
        and lyrics of song
    oppressed toward silence,
      defiance demured,
      shouts murmured,
    a shroud of doubt, unsure.

    Frost, it clings, an icy skin,
       a layer defining,
       a declaration thin but clear,
      precision prose
        and facts that froze
    certain, clear at morning light,
         defiance spouted,
          emotions shouted,
    cold-heart convictions cried out.

    Frost is rigid,
    Fog is soft.

    © Damon Dean, 2022

  4. MUTED MELODIES

    On foggy days and frosty nights
    it’s autumn’s turn to wave her wand;
    the land is laced with shifting sights
    on foggy days and frosty nights
    as warmth retreats and cold delights
    and tinkling sounds surround the pond
    on foggy days and frosty nights.
    It’s autumn’s turn to wave her wand.

  7. Wispy History

    The peaceful Pomo people, basket makers,
    made not just for function, but for art as well,
    their work now in the Smithsonian,
    amazingly, also in the Kremlin.

    The quiet Miwoks, or simply The People,
    who knew the truth of time and things,
    who buried their artifacts, their “stuff”
    with the dead who had made or found them.

    The resilient Wappo, in their homes of leaves, branches, mud,
    living in small groups, extended families, one for all,
    their baskets so perfectly made they’d hold water,
    all their work for community good.

    Winters were mild, game was bountiful, fish plentiful,
    survival not an issue. No mortgage, no outside noises,
    time for family and friends, singing and dancing,
    time to embrace their spirituality, enjoy nature, create art.

    With the towns below obscured by the mist,
    One can imagine these hunter-gatherers,
    bows and clubs in hand, snares at their waist,
    bags of mussels and grasshoppers for a later meal.

    Standing almost at the top of Sonoma Mountain,
    the Santa Rosa plain in white-out from the fog,
    it is easy to imagine the time before the Europeans came,
    before a different type of white-out.

    As the sun peeks over the mountain, lifting the fog,
    one can imagine the coming of Drake, maybe Magellan,
    the Spanish priests and Russian trappers.
    One can grasp the meaning of paradise lost.

  8. CHRISTMAS IN LONDON

    out of a perfect fairytale
    we got packed and set sail

    imagining all things merry and bright
    including the upcoming Christmas night

    finally landing in London
    long flight finally done

    people were bustling, hustling
    on street corners they’d loudly sing

    brilliant trees with decor a glow
    here and there, bits of snow

    dinners served with every trimming
    tea, coffee, dessert, full to brimming

    an evening walk on Christmas Eve
    fog under street lamps, can you believe

    frosty and cold but we held tight
    wanting to be back before midnight

    as the chill settled into our weary bones
    we thought of all the families in their homes

    walking into our old English hotel instead
    gifts were wrapped, left on the bed

    we became like children, who’d won a prize
    so excited for our surprise

    books by Dickens and English poetry, too
    stockings full of candy canes, red and blue

    Christmas cards signed by all the staff
    Humorous ones that made us laugh

    We held each other and made some tea
    By the toasty fire, just hubby and me

    Foggy or frosty, we didn’t care
    Christmas was with us and in the air

    It was a moment I’ll always cherish
    A magic moment, like a lasting wish

    We left London, just after New Year’s Day
    Yet, memories of that Christmas will forever stay

    (c) Janet Rice Carnahan 2022

  10. My nap
    Woke up in shock
    Forgot the time had changed
    They should just leave the clocks alone
    Who thought up this stupid rule?!?

  11. Thank you for your two beauties, Walt and Marie! Kettle steam warms the heart right there and ‘peaceful like violins’ invites a gentle heart to listen! Nothing like enjoying some tea with Santa himself! Lovely poems, you two!

  13. In the Haze near Marshfield*

    The utility crews are late
    saying they are in a meeting
    ,and my co-worker and I
    wait together in the company van.

    A haze has descended
    on forests, marshes and fields
    in the middle of a warm December
    and the land around me sleeps.

    To the background of songs
    played on the radio
    I go through pages
    of The Milwaukee Sentinel
    and The Wisconsin Journal Star

    as if I belong.

    although we’re just on an assignment
    controlling traffic for a utility crew
    for the week.

    Something tells me
    this time of being here
    is a dream

    my dream.

    And at night
    my co-worker and I
    drive through a Christmas lights display
    in a cemetery in town
    while songs of the holiday
    are synched on the radio.

    And one day when on my own
    I drive through the county fairgrounds
    to be able to say
    I saw the world’s biggest
    round barn.

    And one night I sang
    Day Tripper in a bar
    after a Packers game
    just to be able to tell
    myself I sang karaoke
    in the Badger State.

    As the year winds down
    I am planning for a winter’s stay
    back in my hometown
    while in Marshfield
    a part of me will always stay.

    *Marshfield, Wisconsin

  15. THE DAY OF DENSE FOG

    I step into the day of dense fog
    not knowing where I set my feet.
    Not seeing the path laid before me;
    unsure that my way is a highway,
    a back alley, or a one way street.
    However, one thing is certain,
    when I walk by faith and not by sight—
    I’m fully at peace and my life is complete.

    ©️ Benjamin Thomas

  16. Vanishing Beach

    Weather proved capricious that day
    on the beach in late afternoon.
    Nacreous light began to dim,
    a bank of thick fog floated in.

    My fingers seemed to evaporate.
    Your face faded away.
    We huddled on the moist sand
    unmoving until a sky emerged.

  18. WHAT IF NOBODY’S THERE ANYWHERE?

    Fellows
    who like to grouse
    on they and their shadows
    ought to think on climbing those stairs
    in fog.

    NB This assumes one knows the old song:

  19. North of the Pond

    bronze goldenrod
    is delicate filigree lace
    delicate guara lining ditches
    at field’s edge a tracery
    of fine threads all of it blooming
    again in silvery white

    knife edges of switch grass etched
    by a steady hand
    lines and cross-hatching done
    by a patient master

    everywhere tatted edgings trembling
    starched doilies draped where
    wind has woven weed and desiccated bloom
    all of it bordering first skim ice

    but now a droplet slides down icy stem
    warmed too swiftly by breath
    exhaled after being held too long

    so quickly even the awe melted away
    leaving wet weeds in frosty wake.

  21. This was a mid to late week response to prompt.

    A King Subsides

    Frost resides atop his head,
    but fog floats in his brain.
    He was not like this long ago,  before time took his reign.

    In younger days he reigned the years,
    in times of lack or wealth,
    he kingdomed on, from dusk to dawn,
    in sickness or in health.

    But then the toll of age in rage
    deposed him from his will,
    and here he sits, a king, for now,
    a throne he reigns from still.

    Time is so silent, like a fog
    we breathe in every day,
    and though we exhale steadily,
    a wisp of it must stay.

    His vital breaths will one day still,
    when cold of winter looms,
    he cannot rouse the bright  recall,
    of colors from spring blooms.

    A hoary head of frost appears,
    a fog sets in his mind,
    and time enacts it purpose
    neither cruel, or mean, or kind.

    © Damon Dean, 2022

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