Poems for the first week of October

The beginning of October is a strange old time, I find. A bit of a no-man’s land.

Whilst September greets us with its ‘term time’ feel of a new start and cad’s promise of an Indian summer, October offers none of those things. It’s a lift plunge of a month.

We enter October, relatively light and crisp. Many of us still sport our summer freckles, fading as foxy fawn trinkets. There’s a slight nip in the air but the soldering sun is, in many ways, a valiant soldier that still has our back. Ditto, the bleed of pouting fruit is still ours to stain with, as we may. Yet for all of that, we know we will leave October (if you live in the UK at least) with the clock change plummeting us into darkness, a Halloween heavier.

Down, we head, surrendering to its greying gears, as we must. The chamber of Libra reminds us of balance, but isn’t all equilibrium a trade? Summer is a debt that must be squared and settled. The steely merchants of winter are beginning to gather. They mosey in the wire wool of storm clouds, the mounting piles of leaves. Their quest will soon gain pace and become an unstoppable march.

A friend of mine runs an Arts Thread on X once a month. Last week she asked me if I wanted to contribute something. That day, I’d just written the first poem below, so offered her that one. The others are a couple more I’ve written this week. Photos are my own. I’ll put the meanings at the end.

First to lose their leaves

My bladed gaze cut through the hillside

Soaked, as summer grieves

Paused upon the faded prize

Of ‘first to lose her leaves’

Awkward, outed, naked

Raking air, a jaded claw

Stripped of all protection

Casualty of Nature’s law

Barren arches, brittle roots

No places left to play

No boughs of green nor final blossom

Cushioning decay

How can a tree be alien

When standing in a wood?

Well crowds have done the same to me

So I knew how it could

Our silent screams kissed in mid air

Caressed by killing time

We shared mistakes as silver aches

Massaged by ghosts of prime

We traced each other, branch and eye

Weakness a season seized

Both clothed in bare, attracting stare

Us, first to lose our leaves

Revolving Door

My hall of mirrors trip me up

Distort how I perceive

Whilst Chinese whisper echoes

Always beg that I believe them

But worst, is the revolving door

Compulsive carousel

Merry go round heaven

Drops me at the gates of hell

Seduced by new familiar sights

The ritual of the circle

Sucked in again, committed

To the all consuming whirl pool

Revolving door, revolving door

Both sense and senses spinning

Dancing with light I can’t secure

My inner addict winning

One day I’ll find the exit

Learn to rein impulse away

For now, blind flame is bound to wind

My beam, enslaved to sway

The Actor and the Actress

I dreamed we took ourselves to bed

Your actor and my actress

Shed our costumes at the door

Skin, naked on a mattress

No comfort blankets we could cling to

Draping sheets to shield

Seething sun to glare our flaws

No secrets left concealed

Imperfect bodies sewn by eyes

No lines to stumble over

And roles we’d longed for all our lives

Revealed as fields of clover

I’ve found the old films best of all

The crackling combs of homespun

No stilted script, just point and go

Plain hooks, to hang a heart on

And the budgets getting tighter now

We go where there’s still access

Hours squeezing like a fruitless lime

So little time is left to practise

All dreams must curb as orbs of gold

Die, noble knights to order

Next morning we were back on set

The weather that bit colder

Two blackbirds mouthed a primrose song

A tune, gentle and gallant

I tried to sing it, got it wrong

You heard a murder ballad

Meanings

First to lose their leaves

I’d been feeling lonely, yet not had much time alone to digest that, if you know what I mean. Because feelings of isolation are not exclusive to those who are alone, right? Anyway, I was strolling through the park and from across the green, saw the tree in the photograph. It seemed to illustrate my feelings. I then started to contemplate Autumn forcibly shaking each tree in turn, like a determined dog. Each one losing its leaves. Testing it. Just as life does this to people. Someone’s always gotta go first, right? I noticed the wood behind this one particular tree, first to be cruelly stripped and outed. The way people are. Later that day, after revisiting the photo, I thought the tree was actually, probably dead. But that itself is another interesting idea isn’t it. The dead who live among us.

Revolving Door

I wrote this thinking about the perpetual cycles we give ourselves to. The addictions we have, the way familiar situations repeatedly attract us because they present as new. In many ways our draw to these loops is like a child’s playground roundabout. We know we will get off it dazed and confused, but at the same time that dizziness is fun, it makes us feel alive.

The Actor and The Actress

I was feeling romantic when I wrote this poem. I’d also been watching a lot of films which I seldom do, hence the imagery. I was considering the notion of a lover whom one felt truly at ease with. Entwining this idea with the loss of youth. How when we are younger, we seek definition through the roles we take on. Age, however, humbles, softens and feathers. Sooner or later comes a desire to stop playing dress up and games, to have someone appreciate the many ‘hats’ we wear in life, yet acknowledge them as simply that. Roles. The lines about home movies point to the compelling purity we find in that unmasking. Mundane can be so achingly luminous and attractive. Often, we think we’ve had a breakthrough with a person. But oh, how actors and actresses are addicted to their wardrobe and make up……Takes a lot to convince someone to put that shit away.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments and hope you find something that chimes.

I now have more than 300 pieces on substack. If you enjoyed this piece, you can find more poems under the heading ‘poems’ on my home page.