In deep crenelated crimson,
Autumn arrives in regal robes.
Her boisterous blue burgundy
surging with violent carmine.
Autumn arrives in regal robes
carpeting the earth with fractured
parquet of mismatched, misshaped shards-
a luscious ramollescence.
Her boisterous blue burgundy
cape blusters with bolstered boldness
as she whips the wind to climax
and She reigns as queen for the day.
Surging with violent carmine,
capped rivers rage with Her breath
and rains fall relentlessly as
She settles in for the long night.
*Retourne format: four quatrains, eight syllables each line, written with a tumbling refrain. The lines of the first stanza provide an opening refrain for the ensuing stanzas. xABC Axxx Bxxx Cxxx. Unrhymed.
Am I a Summer’s Day?
By Sy Roth
Do I compare myself to a summer’s day?
I think not,
Winter’s chill perhaps,
Cold rivulets of icy waters
Coursing down a crenelated brow
Perhaps.
A dirge,
A threnody
A morose psalm to an ancient soul
A toddler’s wobbly steps taken down a bumpy road,
Rocks kicked up along dusky, chilled ancient iters,
Toted memories borne in metal hods
Black rimed with coal dust
To ward off wintry chills.
Humped to the lean-tos
Quickly, in the hurried winds of time,
Detritus carried along in waves of my own confusion.
And the summer’s day an illusion of
Tripping down bare-tree lanes.
I am the winter of my own discontent.
Blithe fools traipsing through bleary hollow
Airy sprites in hovering tents shadow
Brooding sylvan fringe shrouding light with her swaying willow
Jaded beams peep through the crenelated steeple's window
Sprouting thickets bristling with spiny tendrils each step harrow
Creepy vermin frenetically scurry under foot from burrow to
burrow
A musty dampness shivers intruders; beneath feet liken's slimy
residual doth grow
Whistling winds hauntingly whisper a doleful strain
Ominous portent overhead; hoot owls continuously bleet their eerie
refrain
Perilous pitfalls surround; ensnaring cracks, crevices unwitting lives
drain
Poisonous foliage ensconses the beaten path distilled with its
potion of pain
Jagged course nearly run; wayfarers enlightened by each
cumbersome travail
Weary itinerants seasoned on nature's, menacing plain
Pensively treading the last mile over the rough, foreboding terrain