Fallen leaves, sudden colors surround our steps
this season of the encroaching frost, where breath
shivers surfeit with ghosts, phantasms of shade and shape
lingering on the outskirts of our gaze, entrapped
to swirl in gossamer guise of follies unguessed
flesh and blood whose course ran verdure green
but now, as the dry veined leaves, pose beleaguered
papery skinned revenants awaiting All Hallows’ Eve
as if deserving no more than our own fading grins.
note: Charles Baudelaire’s famous poem “The Revenant” should haunt every evocation of revenants. Check out this translation of the poem at Sublime Terror.
Lisa hosts Dverse's "Poetics 427: Mussenden’s Temple" Write a poem (in any form) using the word "folly." Check out all the responses at Mr. Linky.
This Jolly Beggar 
How beautiful!
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So kind of you. Thank you, my friend!
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Very nicely woven into this one… The folly of Halloween ghosts and goblins!!
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Thank you, Dwight! The only ones I’ve ever seen come trick or treating, thank goodness 😀
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Good one, Dora!
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Thank you kindly, Lynn. 🙂
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Seasonal Ghosts is such a good title here. The last line ending with “fading grins,” reminds us just how fleeting it all is. Magical moments captured here!
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Thank you, Tricia!
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I think this is excellent, wonderful use of words to convey the beauty, decay and death of the season.
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Thank you, Francis, for your generous comment.
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An autumn forest looks ripe for haunting even in daylight. (K)
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Yes it does, Kerfe, especially on a foggy afternoon.
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This brings Kim’s poem to mind—the madness of autumn, all swirling skirts and cackling winds.
I love the swirl of metaphors in this, and the sepia tints.
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Thank you, Jane, for your kind comments, and I like your description — “sepia tints” is exactly the tone I envisioned.
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Oh good. I’m glad I interpreted it the way you intended. We often miss the point completely.
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This is really rather chilling with a hint of the Blair Witch in there – I like it!
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Thank you so much, Ingrid! I hadn’t thought of that but the Blair Witch atmosphere does leap out.
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This is deliciously dark…. I feel like I need to take a walk in the cemetery at night… those ghosts are just a folly anyway.
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Exactly. I think. I’d take a flashlight just in case though. 😀
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Such a well-constructed poem, Dora. My favorite lines:
“the dry veined leaves, pose beleaguered
papery skinned revenants awaiting All Hallows’ Eve
as if deserving no more than our own fading grins.”
I like the way you took this reader from fallen leaves, brought them to mesmerizing mystery, and back again.
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Lisa, Many, many thanks, for your generous comments. 🙏🙂
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You are very welcome ❤
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I enjoyed this Dora, and I agree with Ingrid that it has an essence of Blair witch in twined within it. This is well written, quite engaging.
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Thank you, Rob, for your kind comments. The sense of being in a disoriented state of fear, not knowing where the threat lies, is unforgettable in the Blair Witch Project.
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