Autumn Heyday SS
Golden leaves in flight up high
Amber hues paint the sunlit sky
The heat of sunshine fades away
The air turns crisper day by day
Sour scent of decay on the way,
Autumn in midst of its heyday.
September drapes an amber veil on the fields…
and shadows crawl slowly across the grass.
I breathe the crisp air, half sweet, half sad
and watch the geese wobble across the pale blue sky.
Summer slips away without a sound,
and autumn waits at the gate like an old friend.
When driving the car
approaching a traffic light
it has often been seen
both day and night
what does green mean
here's the plan
for better or worse
drive as fast as you can
then red and amber
if you will
put the foot down
even faster still
and when it turns red
don't dare to dwell
or stop dead
but go like a bat out of hell
Perched on a sapphire bus, its curves agleam,
In a painted glade where wildflowers teem,
A young man and lady, entwined in a glow,
Bask in love’s fervor, where soft breezes flow.
No tangled forest, but a sketch of delight,
Where a stream’s silver ripples catch dawn’s tender light.
wildflowers and violet blooms burst in the air,
Their petals like whispers, adrift without care.
Her eyes, molten amber, spark embers of dreams,
His laughter, a melody dancing with streams.
Their fingers lace gently, like vines that embrace,
Each touch a warm ember, each glance a soft trace.
Below, on a gnarled branch by the water’s bright hum,
Sits a shadowed creature, its form strangely numb—
Dog, monkey, or kangaroo, cloaked in the haze,
It watches their rapture through the morning’s soft blaze.
In this vivid drawing, their love burns alive,
A canvas of passion where heartbeats connive.
The bus, a bold beacon, the stream’s crystal call,
Frame their forever in this blooming sprawl.
It wasn’t amber.
It was light pretending
to be amber because
the leafless purple branches
said so—
their shadows crosshatched the window,
twenty-four panes of silence.
Distant shoes whispered down a hallway.
I turned my head,
but the glow stayed where it was.
The walls were shadow—
blue, absorbing everything.
A cart rattled past my door,
metal on tile,
a music I didn’t understand.
Somewhere, a voice laughed
and then quieted.
The air smelled clean,
like alcohol and cotton,
and the ghost of a gesture
that had been wiped away.
I had no words for color,
or luminescence,
or even myself—
or the warm bars of the crib,
the press of the sheet,
and the ache of something missing
I couldn’t name.
I watched the window’s dimming burn
like a promise made to someone else
and already being forgotten.
Outside, a branch moved,
but I didn’t know it meant wind.
Nothing lonelier than being alone in a crowd
standing still in a bustling sea of aliens
they speak their dialects and look
right through me as if I wasn’t there
Feeling insignificant I don’t belong
and everybody knows it
like an imposter trying to fit in
but wearing the wrong camouflage
I try to merge with oncoming traffic
but they ignore me and won’t let me in
refusing to give me a chance
I am not worthy and they let me know it
Secretly part of me thrives in their ostracism
content that I have made my attempt
that like amber in layers underneath
there is more to be found in silence
Inspired by movie “Lost in Translation”
AP: 3rd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
"A new relationship is like a seed that we plant and nurture ~
it grows into something beautiful and everlasting."
~ Jodi Picoult
When the veins of indigo thoughts in my broken heart
were gently touched by the golden glow within your soul
we blended together in a splendid hue of luminous sheen.
Upon love's palette, we are a soft shade of verdant green
awash in a crimson rouge of blush when I first felt the rush
of romance ignite my senses on our first night together.
So, I'll write what's in my heart, and the verse would start
with white rose petals of rhymes about the many times
I felt blue, wishing you'd recognized what was in my eyes.
Now, they shine with love brighter than amber rays of the sun.
The day was ending,
But a window was open
To a view of dying embers
Ablaze on the coastal horizon.
Like a canvas in motion,
It captured amazement,
Reaching out hypnotically
Through clouds awash in fire,
And across amber-mirrored beach sands
To the beholder, burning its image
Into the retinal lining of the soul;
Like a lamp onto pier’s end,
And an invitation to tomorrow.
It’s not often we’re together
you and I
within this unconscious soul,
drugs;
alcohol last time we met.
And, as before,
always,
we’ll fight
the two of us
like squirming ferrets
in this gray sack
she calls her mind.
Who will prevail before she wakes?
The one that doesn’t
recognize
the child she bore?
The one that spits and shouts
at everyone comes near?
There was a third,
we buried it some time ago;
we together,
in some forsaken corner.
Yet still;
it appears
in some dreams she has.
When brother was fading away
black chimes signaled for the demons to play
They attacked all sides of the hobbled mind
Treating the heart like an orphaned marble
They were rabid and had brackish intention
hope chipped away like crowbar on cement.
In a dream one of them took me into its sky
I clung tight to its undercarriage
begging for it to release me
It promised that it would if I said
that I loved it...I relented
It didn't keep its promise as expected.
I coddled a little amber cross....
(a field mouse in an owl's greying claw).
I was dismissed into a pillow of tranquility
The demons slowly drifting away...
as did my brother the very next day.
I hear the phone ruby ring
I don’t make myself amber answer
Your heart like a black bee may sting
So I amethyst avoid it like cancer
My imagination has spilled like purple paint
So many reasons to hearts fuchsia faint
The more I study holy words so jeweled
The less my peach passion of lust is fueled
I can’t bear to tell you sweetheart
It’s unfair to leave you in the dark
I’m stalling because in peach part
I know within me, for you is a spark
Love has shifted to the lord so divine
I know this seems like crimson crime
Perhaps if you denim dive in his word
You’ll again find me your black bird
sitting with a book
under a silvery moon
enraptured by stones
Burgundy breaths beside blue brook
Floating in air nearby
blonde ambition natural ammunition
Butterfly wings dipping sipping
Daffodils dreams of yellow and cream
Nectar refreshing little tongue
Soaking drinking glowing from gold sun
Tummy full and finally free
To catch a nap in greenery
Heaven is a bed floating flower head
Hidden from birds black
That would have a butterfly snack
Daffodil smells of amber air
Refreshing butterflies software
That nature preserve and provides
Until the next flower ride
When death said "Hello", a chest was opened wide.
A serpent sashayed in, toward a heart and its gloaming.
Spitting black pinballs between the brain and soul.
A flock of night biters moved into sanities narrows...
I pulled a little amber cross from mahogany shadows.
Praying with the might of storms, to a God just out of sight,
to free the mind from the pit viper pissing out lye.
Two seasons have past, all but a half pinball have left.
The mercy of amber has filled the crack in the chest.
The movement of moments is the only constant...
Death is so unabashedly, timeless - arrogant.
In the home of the ‘free and the brave’
live cowards come out of their caves
Proud to fly the Nazi flag in Jacksonville
'Once-amber-fields’ turned dunghills
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