Subject Poetry Contest.

Autumn Sonnet

The trees break out their glad threads
For one last ball before they go bare
The evening brings frost that everyone dreads
There's a touch of Winter in the air

The last of the flowers bloom and they fade
The migratory birds begin to drift south each day
The squirrels pad out the nests they have made
The hoar frost turns the mountains silver and gray

I'll sit by the fire with a good book
Sip coffee laced with rum to keep warm
I see out the window the ice on the brook
But Autumn has never caused me any harm

Autumn brings dog days, the summer is gone
No one ever mentioned that they were so long...

Pendragon
(C) 11/24/2012

anyone here to add a piece?

Before the Autumn Storm

While staring
out my window
a stir of wind brings
hundreds of brown
leaves carpet-bombing
our property
I think then of the
sound of singing
rakes to follow
soon after
the storm

11/27/2012

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

Autumn in Yorkshire

Whoosh
What was that?
That was Autumn mi lad!
Mists and mellow friutfullness?
Tha can forget it!
We don't have any of that up North,
Fall! Them leaves don't fall,
They get blown into Lancashire,
I 'ope tha's got tha coyle in
And thi longjohns on,
It'll soon be September.

We sat in silence
Watching the leaves fall
And the gentle grace
Of their quiet descent
Moved her to tears

They fell like rain
And whispered in the air
And kissed the earth
With a lady's soft lips
And the autumn wind blew

Ah! Silence, solace, solitude--
I learned from the old woman
By the half-opened window
Watching the yellowing leaves,
Touching the lost gust of wind,
Waiting for long-gone Autumn.

Thank you for the entries! This was very difficult to judge. I enjoyed all of them.

cacian: The "o" sound in your poem hypnotized me and made me read it multiple times. I felt the last word should have been "rose" rather than "flows" to tie this back to the beginning, but that might have broke the spell. I counted the meter as five lines of iambic tetrameter in each stanza after the word "autumn" regardless of the line breaks.

Dark Muse: I could feel the melancholy in the last stanza and yet peacefulness in the portrayal of the shroud made out of all the shades of the sun.

Pendragon: This was a nice sonnet. I liked the idea that autumn never caused harm. It is one of my favorite times of the year.

tailor STATELY: I remember seeing trees drop their leaves almost overnight in some cases which your poem reminds me of.

prendrelemick: Being unfamiliar with the geography of England, I looked up Yorkshire and Lancashire after reading this. I see the wind must blow from east to west in that area. Nice portrayal of place.

moonbird: I liked the idea of the leaves being lips that softly kissed the earth.

miyako73: The "lost gust" and "long-gone" sounds pulled me into this poem along with the "s" alliteration of the first line.

These were all very nice and I could see a good reason to pick each. Thanks for submitting them!

Since I was enchanted by the sound that kept me wanting to reread her poem, the winner is cacian!

Congratulations!

YesNo thank you so much I am so glad you enjoyed the piece.
I see exactly what you mean by ROSE and so I put it back instead of FLOWS to tie it back. It sounds much better.

OK the next subject is:

ART

Good luck:seeya:

On the walls of this cave
In the dark let me place
A red sign from my heart with my hand.
May these halls show we're brave
Like this mark, like my face.
All is fine. Till we part here we stand.

Self-Portrait

Charcoal pencil is used to sketch the outlines
Of the points of central focus in the painting
I am designing. The pencil moves quickly, creating shadows.
I leave the paper white in areas I intend to highlight
As the work progresses. Slowly, surely the picture gains definition.
I love abstract surrealism! It makes the viewer decide.

Blush is best for the first gentle wash, before I decide
More fully on the colors that I will need to outline
The image. Painting is like photography in resolution and definition.
The correct color choices and technique—and is it a painting—
Or a photograph? The shading and the highlights
Must, of course, be perfect: Not too bright and yet not too much shadow…

A medium grey is what I almost always choose for shadows—
The world itself is far too dark. One must decide
On a method of proceeding from shadow to highlights:
Back light? Front? Side? Diffused? This will determine what part of the outline
To darken, and what part to leave alone. Each and every painting
Must have something that catches the eye, a defining

Characteristic of its own. In color, some art seems to defy definition.
Perhaps it would be better rendered in black and white, to focus on shadow.
But one artist should never criticize another’s paintings.
What we disguise as “criticism” is truthfully and decidedly
Merely professional jealousy! Ah, the painting has begun to emerge from the outline.
It is a self-portrait in shadows! Now for the highlighting!

Banana-cream is a color I like to use for the purpose of highlights.
It mixes well with the shading, and brings forth real definition!
The places I left white in the charcoal outline
Become gloriously shiny; the others softly fade into shadows.
There are not quite enough shaded areas, I decide.
I pick up another brush and turn back to the painting.

My pallet is a rainbow of colors, though few are required fir this painting.
Grey, white, blush, sepia, blue, and of course banana-cream for highlights.
That’s about it. The eyes of my portrait stare at me as I decide
Whether or not they need to be a bit more clearly defined.
No. They are sad blue-grey orbs, surrounded by dark shadows.
But the face in the painting is mine, ever outline.

Self-portrait. By definition, then, the man in the painting
Is me. A pale, sad face outlined by very heavy shadows.
Perhaps, I decide, turning back one more time, just a little more highlighting…

Pendragon
Copyrighted Material

The History of Art in Words

The colors melt
down the walls,
fading, loosing focus,
realigning, sharpening,
obscured, twisting
into new dimensions,
shapes emerge,
redefine,
hover, collide,
appear and disappear,
hard edges,
smoothing out,
organic,
geometric,
a face,
a distortion,
mismatched,
nothing but lines,
loopy, sweeping,
graceful
or ragged and bitter,
as tears upon a canvas,
a hidden grim smile,
beauty,
grotesque,
masquerading
truth and lies,
revealing and hiding
evolving.

Art Reflection

Art is a lark -
a creative park
of mind expanding
subjectivities

Spin-dizzy or melded
forms glazed
and fired
Ming, Qing, and
Dave the Slave

Splashing colours
or dots Seurat whatever
canvas' imagine;
challenges:
Lillies on a pond, faces,
textures - Dali spectres
rampant form

Literature with or without
poetics: creations evoking
mimsies and whimsy momies:
Invoking Sapphic prose to
Dickinsonian poems
Keat me, beat me
with Milton and His
monstrosities; Shelley
comes to mind...
Don Quixote upon
a rampant thesaurus

Quilts and rag-a-tug rugs;
patches and threads
warp weeping wefts
Need a clew ?
Weave me a tapestry
to stain my walls

Acetylene hardened
plasmas or blobs of liquid
cooling glass -
creations of fire; and
sculptures formed
of building up and
or tearing down -
a gnarled hand: with hammer
and chisel,
rock, plaster, wood, and steel
noble wetted cardboard
Smokes sting the eyes
turn the nose
Tongs

Wires walking on air; mobiles -
life in the balance...
with wings!

Chimes ching-a-ling
sing with a voice
that can make one sigh

Curlicue notes
denote and ascribe dance or tap or cry
blues zep adele-like yo-yo ma
Psychedelic lyrics: songs
kaleidoscopic fly and
linger

Wagnerian plays
entertain cats and fools
Verde: the green master
Comedy and tragedy
intertwine
Ballet

Art: A reflection,
a celebration, of life well
trodden - a dance amidst
strife and laughter
and light

12/27/2012

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY

Ok I must admit all three entries are delightful and interesting reads. It is been a difficult choice to make for all three are worthy of winning but there is only one winner and it is this time the winning goes to PENDRAGON!! . The piece is entertaining and simply smooth floating to read.
Congratulations PENDRAGON and thank you all for posting such great poems:smile5:

Thank you, cacian

The Next subject will be "Legends" Anything from Bigfoot to Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill to Mothman. The word "Legend" must appear in the poem! TWO WEEKS. Good luck

in a world of legends
nothing stands a pagant
against
a name
defiant
famously painted
drastically fainted
through pages densely
a mind is waited
over a history
that's long gone hastly