Poetry Friday: October Poems

Tricia challenged us to write poems about October for her Poetry Stretch this week. I wrote a new acrostic for the stretch. I think it still needs to be tweaked a little—or a lot. I’m also posting some other autumn/October poems that I’ve posted previously at Wild Rose Reader.

Orange moon, disk of burnished copper, gleams in the sky, prowling
Cats step gingerly through fallen leaves crisped by the cold,
Toothy pumpkins smile tremulously in the dark, a flock
Of geese honks farewell to trick-or-treaters toting sacks of sweets. Woe
Betide those out at the witching hour when All Hallows’
Eve swarms with ghosts who rise from their graves and
Return to spirit away unsuspecting souls before the month creaks closed like Dracula’s coffin.

Inspired by Joyce Sidman’s book Red Sings from Treetops, I wrote the Orange poem below for Color Poems, a post in which I encouraged my blog readers to write their own color poems.

The Orange of October

shines in the face

of a harvest moon,

grows plump and round in pumpkin patches,

flickers in the angled eyes of jack o’ lanterns…

and their crooked copper grins.

The Orange of October

flames in oak leaves and asters,

smells like cinnamon and nutmeg,

tastes like sweet potato pie.

Autumn Fire is from my unpublished collection of memoir poems entitled A Home for the Seasons.

AUTUMN FIRE

Two tall maple trees grow

in front of my grandparents’ house.

In late Octoberthey shed their golden crowns.

When the fallen leaves

curl up like little brown bear cubs,

we rake them into a pile

at the side of the street.

As dusk arrives

Dzidzi sets our harvest afire

with a single match.

We sit on wooden crates

at the sidewalk’s edge,

watch the brittle leaves

blossom into golden flames,

smell autumn’s pungent breath.

From the pyre summer rises,

a small gray ghost,

and drifts away

into the darkening sky.

Mad magician of

Autumn

Painting

Leaves

Every color of the rainbow


AUTUMN CELEBRATION

In October, colored leaves

Fall from oak and maple trees…

Bright confetti shaken down

From their boughs. All over town

Trees are celebrating fall,

Decorating every wall,

Sidewalk, yard, and flowerbed

With pumpkin-orange, gold, and red.

We stand out in the falling leaves

And catch confetti on our sleeves,

In our hands and in our hair.

We party till the trees are bare.

Updated to add: Poetry Stretch Results - October

At Blue Rose Girls, I have Robert Frost’s poem After Apple Picking.

Anastasia Suen Has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Picture Book of the Day.