Autumn dire

Cabbageheads liberated, set
apart
on a bench in the garage

 

other rattling leaves drift across the cement floor

arriving from the cold garden last,

hardened sunflower mule ears

gone to brown

 

hung upside down
by their stalks tied together looking about

without eyes
at the world they are leaving

they
     come to the winter, now they must stop enduring.

Reviews

[Clockwork]

You once again show us the variety of passage you described in your poem "illness follows me around." Only this time, I feel the focus is more on how beings are lead to their end. How things transform into other things within a well ordered workshop.

The lines about the sunflowers really touched me. Those last four lines packed a hearty blast of autumn cold for sure. Beautifully written, k.

[h d e rushin]

Robert Frost to me was fire figuring out natures borders. Railing against the civilized but oh so
careful to hold a season's hand. I love Autumns figurative language(s) the ones that cut away
the chafe; the abrade of corn-stalk and the gardens spent cartridges. Wonderfully written.

I love the spacing here. The ordered beginning to end, like chamber orchestra's, with one player
for each part.

thank you for sharing it. dana

[An owl on the moon]

You create such a deep atmosphere of cooler nights... winter approaching softly... and life falling asleep...

[Marie Anzalone]

It's funny how the bounty of fall goes from the joyous colors of September and October to the dismal grays and subdued dusty hues of November to the frozen heart of January and February. I can smell the rotten forgotten apples in this piece, and hear the hoarfost crunching underfoot. I can hear a crow cawing in the background, and the scuttling of deer mice that search out the sunflower seeds on hooded lifeless eyestalks.

Fantastic.

[SkinlessFrank]

nothing so lonely as the last garden produce of a season past

[Penlady]

Your words brings a warmth to a cold situation...I can visualize spring, cold dark ground, seeds that flourish through the summer and finally the harvest...

[Bree Potter]

This is very evocative. The description of the vegetation and the use of colloquial names really gives it an earthly texture. I am particularly drawn to the first and second stanzas. I think they're the best, especially the enjambment in line 2. I wasn't sure what to think about the enjambment in the penultimate line, though. On the one hand, it was suitably chiasmic. On the other, I don't know how I feel about "they" being alone. It almost seems self-contradictory. Also, is the last line supposed to read "have come to winter"? I felt tied up by using "to" to bookend "come". This is just me though, and I may need to read through it again to be sure. Otherwise, I think it's a sparse, beautiful poem. Oh, and I like the idea of the "ears" having "eyes". It felt delightfully paradoxical.

[Penlady]

I love this poem...can feel browned leaves lifted with the first chill wind across the cement garage floor...and all the crispness of winter that renders the living, brown and seasoned and hanging, till next year...when spring returns...
poem points to cozy winter nights and cuddling in...