Autumn Poetry Competition

[Scheherazade]

Here are the poems for our Autumn Poetry Competition!

Please do not discuss the entries not to influence the outcome of the poll.

If contributers would like to ask questions, they should do so in a PM.


* This poll will close on October 31st.*

Good luck and happy autumn to all!

[Scheherazade]

Generic Autumn Poem


With the light eclipsed by sunless wind and from the cold,
essential green leaches from the leaves
and leaves what's true:
the fiery tint and hue,
gold, if gold, or orange, or reddish-blue --
ultimately each going to brown
after the fall.

Hence, the very name of the year's last quarter,
slipping away as a waning season of the moon,
supposed to make us take the hint, reflect the view
that every one of us will likewise fall
(and soon), that this process of decay must relate
a memento mori, a precursor
of our eventual fate:
first above -- and then below --
the ground.

Sorry to disappoint --
but I am neither forewarned nor chastised
by bits of beauty floating in the sky,
crumbling under my feet.
Perhaps that is the point.
Death is mere prelude to real life in disguise.
Those whom the dying leave behind
take solace in giving sorrow voice.
Wet-eyed keeners for leaves?
They do not mourn themselves
when they burst ablaze to rejoice
for new life to come and the green to repeat.

[Scheherazade]

Autumn Melody

The trees upon the mountainside are bright with color,
An entire artist’s usual working palette.
And the ginkgo trees in town touched by King Midas,
Almost overnight turned a lovely shade of pure gold.

An entire artist’s usual working palette,
Now from below in the valley I can name each type of tree.
Almost overnight turned a lovely shade of purest gold—
Hickory—that means squirrels have found their harvest.

Now from below in the valley I can almost name each type of tree.
That brilliant red is a maple of that I may be sure.
Hickory—that means squirrels have found their harvest.
Dull brown to purple marks an oak tree very clearly.

That brilliant red is a maple of that I may be sure.
Yellow like the sun, pointing out a mighty popular; the tulip tree.
Dull brown to purple marks an oak tree very clearly.
Scarlet sumac, banana-cream birches, and verdant evergreens.

Yellow like the sun, pointing out a mighty popular; the tulip tree.
And the ginkgo trees in town touched by King Midas,
Scarlet sumac, banana-cream birches, and verdant evergreens.
The trees upon the mountainside are bright with color…

[Scheherazade]

Beeches

Beeches
standing tall
towering above me.
Brown, red and golden leaves
so beautiful in their death.

I bend down for a beechnut
crack it open.
It is empty.

On the broken shell falls
this autumn's first snowflake.
Then there are more.
White, cold, wet.

They cannot cover me.
They melt away.
They melt together with my tears.
And the shells crumble in my hand.

[Scheherazade]

My autumn

My autmn...
yes that is what you are ,you are my autmn.
stealthy you crept in
gently you stole in,
all chivalrous in your red and gold finery,
which you in time laid at my feet,
knowing as you did this you swept me off mine,
hardly did i notice the bare arms of my beloved trees,
your sharp cold breezes I paid no heed to,
after all you couldn't be perfect,I said,
your hands got colder,your breath got chillier as it crept down my neck
I closed my eyes to the world and kept loving you,
ever seeing u as i first did,my lover...
all mine to love forever......all decked in red n gold.
blindfolded you led me to winter ...
your arms kept away the cold for so long,i had stacked away all my shawls away
I knew you'd hold me tight all winter...............
Why then did I suddenly have numb senses,why weren't you in sight,
you must be playin a cruel game with me.... are u hiding?
have I been bad?
winter ,harsh bitter cold winter...
and I ,all alone............................in the cold cold land all around me
you had gone forver..............
autmn was gone n now it was winter
my winter has not been easy,I had to brave the feezing chill all alone...
bu now my winter is comming to an end..
a little bud has peeped out of the snow
spring calls...........
my cracked palms n feet are healing...
that heart of mine is also begining to softly hum.
spring has arrived...................
devious trecherous autmn I've left you just like you left me long ago...

[Scheherazade]

OCTOBERNESS

Misty mornings
Start dim and dismal
Penetrating Dampness
Seeping into your bones
Some days it brightens later
Enough for shirtsleeves
Then when darkness falls
Curtains are drawn
At the months beginning
Grass is still growing green
The trees are well covered still
Then leaves turn green to yellow
Yellow is burnished to gold
Gold to burning red
Then red to earth
Beyond the equinox
Days have already become
More dark than light
Before the clocks fall back
And the sun sets sooner
Days of sunshine deceive
Sheltered pockets warm and confuse the senses
In the later days
When the residual warmth diminishes
The bite remains
To herald worse to come

[Scheherazade]

Autumnal

I do not cling to the reluctance of the senses
to follow this example of death for rebirth —

Because each year, under the Spring Oak,
the supple failures of late August are strewn over the lush lawn,
and this morning I looked up
to see a squirrel enter its nest, then over the edge
stare down at me with its energy pouring from indifferent eyes,
my hands full with a gathering of the tangled green sprouts
she had cut and that had fallen one by one —

and because earlier I stopped and walked into a lone patch of trees
forgotten between the BP station and the DMV,
and there for a moment in the breeze I smelled the first snows of Canada —

I look at the intended nest in my hands; this is the land
of eternal green, but my hands say it is Autumn,
their veins are prominent, and though still strong
from years of activity, they turn in color and freckle with this season.

The mountains are on fire with surrender where once I lived — amber, red and gold;
they reminded me each year of the forsaking required to carry on,
or travel on. Here the wind changes to a worrisome thing, I see it
on the weather report in puffs of clouds whirling off the coast of Africa,
like the smoke from a steam engine inevitably revolving us in space,
as I recall the rattle of cicadas this morning, the sound of this engine,
moving us along, round blue planet — destination right on time.

[Scheherazade]

Changing Direction

the quiet brings the morning message
to the cool dawn of early autumn
carried along the shimmering leaves

the changing scent drifts
across the wide open meadow
to the dense green forest

the finest dust of harvest
sprinkles the spirited earth
soothing dreams of snowy winter

[Scheherazade]

colours forgotten

deep grey twilight shadows
lengthening across the garden
pulling a blanket over the day
and the doves call their mates home

harvest moon glows
in new moon hues
filling my window with his
distant dreams

starpoints gleam bright
blue shines of hope
i reach out and pluck one
to keep as my own

and i remember your love
in colours forgotten
or perhaps they never existed

[Scheherazade]

Absence

There is no sense in this season
where leaves pale and crisp upon
the bough, and fall like water,
a sudden suicide. The trees shiver
without them, cold with knowledge
of the empty days to come.

Life’s pace slips into a whisper,

and everywhere is absence,
absence, naked and exposed
without meaning.

The rain falls because it has to,
bark thickens on the branches,
the wretched land tips his hat
toward the setting sun.

[Scheherazade]

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.

[Scheherazade]

Autumn

Dried leaves and plastic bags
Do a whirling Polka down the street.
The litter of trees and men
Mingle together in the wind.
Fairytale golden showers
Fall from the trees of Lothlorien
Into the cigarette strewn gutters
And beneath the wheels of cabs.
Mellowed sunlight turns
Windows sixty stories high a pale gold
And stutters in brilliant bursts,
Here and gone, here and gone,
Through the gaps in the moving El train.
A woman waiting for the bus
Tightens her scarf against the first chill wind
A man turns his collar up and sighs.
And summer leaves the city.

[Scheherazade]

A four-way tie? I think we need more votes!

[Virgil]

What a bunch of fine poems. I can see why this is close.

[Pendragon]

Almost the same as when I took my time off. Where are the voters?