One dark and frightful night
Plundering through the woods
Just as fast as I could
Looking for a glimpse of daylight

When suddenly I felt a tug
Followed by a strange sound
My feet came off the ground
As my captor let out a gutteral UGH

Dragging me through the brush
Callous hand around my hair
He moved without a care
Only my screams forced him to rush

Dropping me next to the fire
A glimpse of a man within the flame
The lack of conversation was such a shame
Under his gentle gaze, I began to tire

Poetic license I employ
to match inventive
wisdom and witticism
regarding (brother in law of mine
husband of eldest sister of same)
interspersing, initiating, incorporating
fabrication whenever possible,
and only the subject himself
can discern fact from fiction
and get a chuckle.

We languish when our lines are lean.
(You poet pals know what I mean.)
Our pen, sometimes, outright refuses
to trace the touch of tender Muses.

We suffer when we force our rhyme.
You’d think we’d carried out a crime!
like Chamberlain, that crass appeaser
or Brutus boldly stabbing Caesar!

We worry when our verse won’t glow,
and poet’s passion will not flow.
(John Keats said poems should flow freely,
like streams, sun’s rays or blood, ideally.)

I find a reflective fog
outside my window this morning.

It hides the vibrant signs of fall -
the changes in spent leaves
not ready to let go of summer,
ordained to flaunt their fingertips.

I am given no cordial greeting from the backyard.
It holds no personality, save one late rose,
pink and dewy, peeking out toward me
from the gray.

There is no memory of the colors
of the world - the cardinal, the jay,
the periwinkle I planted around the steps.