Thursday, October 08, 2009

Poetry Stretch Results - October

The challenge this week was to write a poem about October. Here are the results.
Laura Purdie Salas left a bevy of poems in the comments!
    October Wears…

    a pink satin nightgown
    each morning,
    goodbye colors
    bleeding brightly
    beside her black coffee.

    At noon, she slips on
    a Parrish blue hat and
    golden shawl and meets
    Summer for pasta salad,
    talking about long days past.

    By evening, she has changed
    into navy velvet,
    smoke perfume,
    and diamond choker,
    determined to show
    her beauty is not
    confined to sunlight.

    --Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved


    October…

    dances all day
    a clattering whirl
    of click-clacking
    pile-stacking
    gold skeleton leaves

    then
    pours into night
    to the silent sky
    to the high-flying
    summer’s-dying
    wild goose cry

    --Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

    By October...

    My lunch balance is zero.
    My shoes are sloppy.
    My jeans have hot chocolate stains.
    My classes are boring, even French!
    (Est-ce que je peux faire une sieste pendant la classe?)
    My teachers all know me.

    I’m ready for summer.

    --Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
Sam left this poem in the comments.
    It is cold enough to make me
    try to keep my feet dry,
    but not get too mad if my foot slips into the October river.

    No river is as beautiful as my
    October river.
    The sun is right, the leaves are right, the snakes are not hogging the place like they did all summer.

    I take my boat, balancing
    and muscling it down the rocky, trashy bank
    to the edge where it
    slips into the October river.
Diane Mayr of Random Noodling shares a poem entitled October Dusk. She also left this poem in the comments.
    October

    Honey dipped from a pot
    by the hand of autumn is
    swirled through a teacup.
    Black tea sweetened
    lightly, cooled ever
    so slightly. You sip
    the honeyed liquid
    slowly, swishing
    it around your mouth,
    squeezing it between
    your teeth. You swallow,
    and underneath the
    sweetness you can faintly
    taste the acerbity of what
    remains in the bottom
    of your cup.
Susan Taylor Brown of Susan Writes shares a poem entitled October.

Jane Yolen left this poem in the comments.
    Leaf Peepers

    We have already seen
    the first hardy thrust
    of red maple leaves
    before the Leaf Peepers arrive.
    They come in buses with blue-tinted windows,
    and license plates from places
    all the way down to Florida.
    They come through only once,
    to view the big picture, the panorama,
    the full palette of Fall.
    I wish they could understand
    That autumn is a glorious unfolding,
    a slow strip tease
    of green to gold, to orange, to purple, to red.
    This week the aspen on the corner
    by the VFW building changes
    like a shy young bride.
    Tomorrow a maple does the full monty
    in the space between my house and my neighbor’s.
    We New Englanders are not leaf peepers,
    never claimed to be any such.
    Hell--we are total autumn voyeurs.

    © 2009 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved
Tiel Aisha Ansari of Knocking From Inside shares a poem entitled Elbow Month.

Kate Coombs of Book Aunt left this poem in the comments.
    Who Walks?

    Who walks the blue twilight,
    footsteps cool as a shiver?

    Who drifts like October wind,
    stirring sorrowful leaves?

    Who searches for lost days,
    once bright as pumpkins?

    Who fades by morning,
    Leaving only bone dust?

    Who has no name,
    who has no stone?

    --Kate Coombs (Book Aunt)
Cindy Blair left this poem in the comments.
    Simply Autumn

    Autumn ascends
    from flowering summer
    bringing opposing
    feelings to all.

    If you love
    hot sultry summer,
    you just might loathe
    leaves when they fall.

    They always signal
    cold shivery winter;
    nature's long fervent
    motherly call.
Elaine Magliaro of Wild Rose Reader shares a number of fall poems, including a new acrostic for October.

Michael Coldham-Fussell of Rivers of Meaning left this poem in the comments.
    An Ode to October

    The names are out of place,
    From September to December;
    You should be eighth not tenth,
    My dearest friend October.

    How mean it is to have a name,
    That doesn't mean your whereabouts;
    But has you shuffled two months forward,
    Unaware that there are doubts.

    So here's my plan to right this wrong,
    And have your name sound sober;
    The year must always start in March,
    With apologies owed to October.

    © 11-10-09 Michael Coldham-Fussell
Tess of Written for Children shares a poem entitled Ghazal for October.
Here's one of the poems I dashed off this evening.
October Field

abandoned tomatoes
drooping from the vine
peas long picked over
my once lush garden
returning to earth
a richness of rot
save for ripe, round
orange giants
growing and glowing
until fall’s first frost
It's not too late if you still want to play. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll add it to the list.

4 comments:

  1. Tricia,

    I wrote an October acrostic for the stretch this week. I've posted it--along with some of my other October poems--at Wild Rose Reader.

    http://wildrosereader.blogspot.com/2009/10/poetry-friday-october-poems.html

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  2. Wow Laura, you were certainly inspired by October. Love the line "goodbye colors" and the image of "gold skeleton leaves."

    Sam, the line about the snakes, what an image!

    Diane, I can picture that scene taking place. Really like the image of autumn swirling the honey in the teacup

    Jane, when I first saw the title I thought, ooh, a new bug! :) Love the "slow strip tease" and "changes like a shy young bride."

    Kate, ooh, love "Leaving only bone dust?"

    Cindy, your opening, "Autumn ascends
    from flowering summer" really captures the essence of fall for me.

    And Tricia, how I love the image of
    "my once lush garden
    returning to earth
    a richness of rot"

    What terrific poems this week!

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  3. Clearly autumn inspires a lot of us.

    Jane

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  4. October is the New England spirit.
    Here's http://writtenforchildren.blogspot.com/

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