Autumn Again

[Virgil]

This was my poem in the poetry contest on autumn. Thanks to all that voed for me. I would like to recieve comments, especially critical ones. What doesn't work for you in here? What do you like as well?


Autumn Again

The maple tree in front of my neighbor’s home
divides in two like Siamese Twins
bound at the hip.

Its leaves have turned early again,
crusted red like dried, crusted tomato sauce-
or is it blood-- pinned to their stems,
nailed to the wood.

The summer air has ended and
the cool scent of autumn smacks you in the face.
Again. Enough to topple you over.

Neighbors go about their motions,
school has started,
baseball winds towards its Series,
talk of November elections cross the radio waves,
football has kicked off again,
all beneath a sky so blue it reminds you
of a little girl’s iris.

I enter my car, parked in front of my house,
ready to go to work.

A red leaf comes off the tree—
the first of the year, perhaps-
drifts down floats like a slip of paper while suddenly
two morning jays, blue and white tipped,
sweep across the street.
Their peevish caws proclaim the end of summer,
the end of little league and girls soccer,
reclaiming dog days for the approaching equinox.

Such demonstrates ballistic coefficients,
a floating leaf, a swooping bird.
I watch this liturgy as I hang from
turning the ignition.

There was a night I slept in the car
in some parking lot, chilled by the northern nip
unable to return home.
They barred the city shut.
I had a blanket in the trunk for such emergencies
and I took it out and threw it over me and
pitched the seat back almost to a bed and
listened to the radio all night.
The sirens that had been blaring all day
finally stopped, and the crickets still alive
began their evening prayers,
unable to distinguish autumn air from crumbled dust
that floated and sooted all our homes,
all our clothes, all our lungs.

I turn the ignition, the motor crackles,
and I almost put the car in drive when another
leaf, this one still green but a frozen green,
like it had turned to stone, floats down and lays
beside the red one.

This is the kairotic moment,
when the curdled leaf falls with a plop to the ground,
the thump circling inside the cavity of my head.
I turn the ignition off and decide to walk around
the block.

I pass Mr. Sackman’s house.
His son lost his life a few years ago, and
loses it again at the end of every summer
rushing up a staircase to afflict a fire
started by a man no one around here ever heard of
and lived half a world away.

The leaves around the block
had also turned and the nails
that pinned them had been yanked or reaped,
obelisks in the mind giving way

leaves scorched red by zipping aero planes
which blasted into towers.

The leaves around me, dozens now,
are falling like three thousand bodies
coming down again.

[Granny5]

Virgil, I'm sorry but I have nothing critical to say about this moving piece. It's like watching a short film. I find it moving and real. There's nothing else to say.

[Virgil]

Virgil, I'm sorry but I have nothing critical to say about this moving piece. It's like watching a short film. I find it moving and real. There's nothing else to say.

Thanks Granny. Yeah, tears came to my eyes as I wrote it. Lots of people around here (Staten Island) lost people there. But I do have to make a change. The true biographical event, sleeping in my car in some parking lot in Perth Amboy New Jeersey that night of 9/11, that I mention has an inaccuracy in it. I did sleep in the car because the city was closed off completely, but I realized after I submitted the poem that I did not "listened to the radio all night." The radio went dead when the tower with the antenae collasped and no one had any radio at least until the next day. I'll have to fix that.

[Xillus_Xavier]

This is a very touching poem and I can think of a thing that I could tell you to change.

[Sweets America]

Great poem, I love it, very touching. Just like Granny says, it's like a movie.

[Virgil]

Thanks Sweets and Xillus.

[cleo]

I knew people that perished on 9/11. Very moving poem

[symphony]

U want a critical comment? Okay i'm here with one...

I dont like...
it being so damned great!! :D

Congrats! ;)

[Virgil]

Thank you Cleo and Symph. :)

[Pendragon]

Very nice, Virgil. That day stands out in my mind as the day I never left the house and the TV never went off all day. I cried and I didn't care who knew it. I don't know that we will ever recover as a Nation from that moment, but I know that I gained a heap of respect for Police Force, Firefighters, and Rescue Squad Members, and they never have to worry about me donating to them in my area. Didn't know you wrote the poem when I voted for it, I just thought it the best. I don't vote for myself as a general thing!

Bless your tender heart.

Dale

[barbara0207]

Congrats, Virgil! I think present and past merge very well in your poem. It gives you the shivers.

[PrinceMyshkin]

This was my poem in the poetry contest on autumn. Thanks to all that voed for me. I would like to recieve comments, especially critical ones. What doesn't work for you in here? What do you like as well?

1) the reference to the leaf nailed to the wood kind of sets one up to expect further crucifixion references.

2) It ought to end with the line about the young girl's iris which lovely and striking in the way one wants a poem to end. Maybe it was precisely the striking quality of that that made everything after it seem somewhat anti-climactic to me, or as if you'd fired up the poetic engine and it was going on without a driver.

[Virgil]

1) the reference to the leaf nailed to the wood kind of sets one up to expect further crucifixion references.

2) It ought to end with the line about the young girl's iris which lovely and striking in the way one wants a poem to end. Maybe it was precisely the striking quality of that that made everything after it seem somewhat anti-climactic to me, or as if you'd fired up the poetic engine and it was going on without a driver.

Thanks for your comments Prince. Here are my thoughts on what you raised. As to number 1) towards the end of the poem I do bring that allusion back with this:

The leaves around the block
had also turned and the nails
that pinned them had been yanked or reaped,
obelisks in the mind giving way
Yes it was a reference to crucifixion but it was also a reference to the pins that held up each floor that failed and caused each floor to pancake on top of each other.

As to number 2) my vision was to end with the falling leaves merged/morphed into the falling bodies. Your suggestion is equally valid but I don't think it would have communicated the same thing was after.

Thank you for your observations. I will come back to them in any revision I might do.

[blazeofglory]

Autumn Again

The maple tree in front of my neighbor’s home
divides in two like Siamese Twins
bound at the hip.

Its leaves have turned early again,
crusted red like dried, crusted tomato sauce-
or is it blood-- pinned to their stems,
nailed to the wood.

The summer air has ended and
the cool scent of autumn smacks you in the face.
Again. Enough to topple you over.

Neighbors go about their motions,
school has started,
baseball winds towards its Series,
talk of November elections cross the radio waves,
football has kicked off again,
all beneath a sky so blue it reminds you
of a little girl’s iris.

I enter my car, parked in front of my house,
ready to go to work.

A red leaf comes off the tree—
the first of the year, perhaps-
drifts down floats like a slip of paper while suddenly
two morning jays, blue and white tipped,
sweep across the street.
Their peevish caws proclaim the end of summer,
the end of little league and girls soccer,
reclaiming dog days for the approaching equinox.

Such demonstrates ballistic coefficients,
a floating leaf, a swooping bird.
I watch this liturgy as I hang from
turning the ignition.

There was a night I slept in the car
in some parking lot, chilled by the northern nip
unable to return home.
They barred the city shut.
I had a blanket in the trunk for such emergencies
and I took it out and threw it over me and
pitched the seat back almost to a bed and
listened to the radio all night.
The sirens that had been blaring all day
finally stopped, and the crickets still alive
began their evening prayers,
unable to distinguish autumn air from crumbled dust
that floated and sooted all our homes,
all our clothes, all our lungs.

I turn the ignition, the motor crackles,
and I almost put the car in drive when another
leaf, this one still green but a frozen green,
like it had turned to stone, floats down and lays
beside the red one.

This is the kairotic moment,
when the curdled leaf falls with a plop to the ground,
the thump circling inside the cavity of my head.
I turn the ignition off and decide to walk around
the block.

I pass Mr. Sackman’s house.
His son lost his life a few years ago, and
loses it again at the end of every summer
rushing up a staircase to afflict a fire
started by a man no one around here ever heard of
and lived half a world away.

The leaves around the block
had also turned and the nails
that pinned them had been yanked or reaped,
obelisks in the mind giving way

leaves scorched red by zipping aero planes
which blasted into towers.

The leaves around me, dozens now,
are falling like three thousand bodies
coming down again.

This poem is really a realistic kind for herein the poet has so marvelously presented both the autumn and the situation vibrantly and of course that is what makes a good poem.

The poem is rather lengthened, yet the reader gets swayed away when one gets tuned to the poem.

Here the note is really strikingly absorbing, for the events here the poet associate with or relate to the autumn is indicative of the poet' craftsmanship.

Of course the poem does not leave the reader untouched. Maybe that is what a poem stands for, and nothing else.

[Virgil]

Thank you Blaze.

[firefangled]

Congratulations, Virgil. This was a fine poem. I read it over and over and each time I could see the thought you put into it.

It did take several readings for me, but then I am slow to understand many poems. Having said that, what I started to notice was how each stanza did move the poem along as well as fulfill the references of the previous stanzas.

There are so many of these fulfilled references that hit me on each reading that I did not get at first. I want to talk hear about each one, but it was the multiple discoveries that brought so much richness to the poem. I don't want to take that away from anyone.

It was indeed a sad remembrance, but also enjoyable to read for the poetry.

[firefangled]

bad post

[Virgil]

Congratulations, Virgil. This was a fine poem. I read it over and over and each time I could see the thought you put into it.

It did take several readings for me, but then I am slow to understand many poems. Having said that, what I started to notice was how each stanza did move the poem along as well as fulfill the references of the previous stanzas.

There are so many of these fulfilled references that hit me on each reading that I did not get at first. I want to talk hear about each one, but it was the multiple discoveries that brought so much richness to the poem. I don't want to take that away from anyone.

It was indeed a sad remembrance, but also enjoyable to read for the poetry.

Thank you. I liked your poem too.

[AuntShecky]

"Kairotic"?

[Virgil]

"Kairotic"?

I was wondering if anyone would ask. ;) Yes, from kairos. Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos. Not too common a word, but I liked it's religious connotation.

[AuntShecky]

Ah, a new word and a useful one as well. Originally I thought it was an alternate spelling of carotene (the yellow
substance in leaves) or perhaps something akin to "chaotic."

Thanks though, for the enlightenment!