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Season of Gall and Sticky Listlessness
Autumn is upon us here in Texas.
Her shy arrival’s destined to perplex us.
Just like the voiceless aria of Spring,
Fall’s muted presence doesn’t change a thing.
All year we bear the brutal blare of heat
Drumming to the sear of Summer’s beat,
Roasting freckled necks till lobster red
And toasting every thirsty flowerbed.
Some cannot shrug the fug of muggy days—
That hot and groggy, soggy-skinned malaise.
The fevered blister of the Lone Star State
Leaves cooler seasons sweating at her gate.
As toiling Texans clamor for relief
From boiling blasts of grill-and-sizzle grief,
The only sign that Fall has spiced the skies
Is purchases of pumpkins on the rise.
No gold and russet foliage blesses trees.
No frosty pledges waft upon the breeze.
No woolens cure the lure of shorts and sandals.
Our Fall is found in aromatic candles…
An annual clue that Autumn is a bummer
Eclipsed by the eternal flame of Summer.
.
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Ode to a Pumpkin
O, chunky autumn fruit of orange hue
You loom so large with whispers of the night—
__That buzz of beast and boo
To pump the stoutest hearts with bouts of fright.
I prize your flashing torchlight eyes of flame
__To shoo and scorch
All ghouls who breathe the Jack O’Lantern name
And ghosts who spread their dread upon the porch.
O, symbol of the scintillating sun
I’ve grown so cozy in your harvest glow.
__When basking in your fun
Your tantalizing tricks have let me know
The intricacies of your complex air.
__You are a treat—
A moon-kissed juicy boon beyond compare.
No plumptious, pie-ripe fruit could be as sweet.
Some crave your fragrant flesh in steaming soup.
Some seek your frothy lattes topped with spice.
__I do not wish to scoop
Your innards out. I’ll dream of you and mice
With glitter from a wand upon your skin
__In magic’s thrall…
Till footmen and your golden coach within
Arrive to drive me to the local ball.
.
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Susan Jarvis Bryant has poetry published on Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online. She also has poetry published in TRINACRIA, Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems anthology, and in Openings (anthologies of poems by Open University Poets in the UK). Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition, and has been nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize.
I especially enjoyed the winsomeness of your Ode to Pumpkins as it covers all aspects of pumpkinness, ending so unexpectedly at the ball.
Your autumn poem conveys well living in a place where the seasons aren’t as traditional as in more northern climes.
Thanks for the reads, Susan.
Thank you, Paul! We’ve gone pumpkin-wild here in Texas… I simply had to write an ode… the pumpkins demanded it. We even have pumpkin chunkin festivals… pumpkins are HUGE!!
I agree with Paul. Ode To A Pumpkin is simply out of this world.
Paddy
PS Not that I didn’t like the first poem. 😉
Paddy, thank you! Ode to a Pumpkin is my favorite too… but I had an absolute blast writing both poems. I’m glad you enjoyed them.
Susan, given this is the case where you & Mike live – “The only sign that Fall has spiced the skies – Is purchases of pumpkins on the rise” – I thought it might assuage your misery just a tad to learn that we here, in Iowa, are also victims of those greedy pumpkin providers! Every year we swear -“This is it, we’ve had it!” (We’re carving a couple tonight!) 2 seasonal dandies and a super image from Evan. A+!
Mark, I’m thrilled to hear you have gotten into the pumpkin spirit once again… after living here for thirteen years, I can’t pass a pumpkin patch without getting excited… I must be a fully-fledged American!
I vote to retain the neologism, “plumptious”.
Yay, me too!! What a plumpilicious word that just screams ambrosial feast!
Loved them both! But ode to a pumpkin has to be the winner. I especially enjoyed that last verse.
Rohini, thank you. I’m thrilled you enjoyed them and that my pumpkin is a winner… I am growing to love these juicy, spherical marvels more and more as time goes on.
In the first poem, you exquisitely captured the images of fall in West Texas (where I live). The picture provided must be in the Hill Country or East Texas. I once lived not far from a tiny town named “Notrees.” Although the heat has abated somewhat, you are so right–nothing much has changed, except now we have football.
In the second poem, I enjoyed the paean to the fall fruit with the whispers of their eventual use on Halloween and loved the images of the mice and carriage getting ready for a fall ball.
Roy, I am pleased to hear you enjoyed the poems… and even more pleased that I’ve hit the right note for someone who lives here! Thank you for your kind words.
I’ve come to love the Hill Country of the Devil’s backbone 300 miles from the coastal plains… it’s full of trees, hills, winding roads and vineyards… if I close my eyes to the cacti, I get an instant trip back to my homeland. I love it! I actually got a little glimpse of Autumn at Lost Maples a couple of years back… a basked in those little flashes of gold and red and dined off them for a couple of years.
“Season of Gall…” reminds me of my two years in Texas long ago. I longed for the beauty of autumn I had always known before. Your poem is a great description of the very un-poetic Texas autumn. Your first rhyme — Texas/perplex us — brought a big smile! And your last couplet is so true! As always, you’re the queen of internal rhyme throughout. And there surely is something magical about the beauty of pumpkins.
Cynthia, thank you so much for your comment. I’m so pleased to hear there is someone out there who feels the same way I do about Autumn in Texas. I’ve come a long way in over a decade… when I first arrived… I cried… pitifully. But I soon learned the benefits of the longest summers I’ve ever known… snow is rare, and Christmases are warm! We have to take all the plus sides on offer these days through fear of indulging in the joy of grief. 😉
Your pumpkin poem is so charming. I especially like the way you end it by alluding to the Cinderella story.
Cheryl, I had such fun writing the ode… pumpkins make me smile. I’m glad you liked it. Happy fall to you!
Thank you for both these delights, Susan. “Season” is perfect in its way: the earth leans, but (in Texas) so what? Fall seems a non-entity in this poem, so that I’m reminded of your Nothing challenge, and making the line “Our Fall is found in aromatic candles” a truly sensational summation, on a par with the best of Porter and Hart.
“Ode”is just as good, with “plumptious” gloriously flashing its meaning, the biggest pumpkin in the patch.
I must admit, though, finding it hard to picture Cinderella in shorts and sandals, even by the fireplace.
Julian, your comments always make me smile, and I love this one, especially your wonderful observation of the “aromatic candles” line… what a beautiful compliment. I can relate to your difficulty finding a sandal-shod, shorts-clad Cinderella hard to envisage… I’m right with you on that one… and I’m laughing. Julian, thank you for your kindness and for your wonderful sense of humor!
Two delightful poems, Susan, which give great pleasure on multiple readings. What I particularly like about your “Season of Gall” is the use of language which blends a certain old-school elegance of language (e.g. “gold and russet foliage…”) with colloquial language, creating fun and unexpected contrasts: “the fug of muggy days,” the “bummer” that is a Texas Autumn. This reflects well the speaker’s unique point of view as a Brit who is mostly, but not fully, assimilated into the culture of Texas. A special shout-out for the non-naughty “toast” double-entendre in “Summer’s heat… toasting every thirsty flowerbed.”
But it’s your Ode to a Pumpkin which I find absolutely enchanting. Who knew this humble squash could yield such enjoyable poetry? (I’m not 100% certain pumpkins are gourds since gourds are usually inedible.) And once you’ve thoroughly discussed the many delights of the pumpkin (I now crave a “frothy latte”) you take your poem to a whole different level with your Cinderella reference. You are careful, here, not to get too starry-eyed as you take that pumpkin carriage-ride to the “local” rather than the “royal” ball – a genius decision, I think, because it reasserts the humility of the pumpkin even in the face of its magical associations. So very well done!
Brian, I always appreciate your fine eye, and you have made me smile broadly with the language-blend points… I cannot say I was fully aware of it until you mentioned it, but there it is… a smidgen of elegance, a splash of saucy, a pinch of English, and a heap of Texas attitude… the oddest linguistic recipe for a nod to Autumn I’ve ever followed… and I’m thrilled it’s to your taste!
I agree with you on the gourd front… Mike has waved his moderator’s wand over the offending line and sprinkled a bit of fairy dust over the mistake. Thank you for alerting me and thank you too for your appreciation and your encouragement. It means a lot!
I, too, found both poems supremely delightful, but was mostly struck by your rant against Autumn. I have never spent the season in a southern clime but I too have a case against Autumn based on its murder of Summer and it’s being the harbinger of the vilest of seasons, Winter. Perhaps a year or two in Texas would endear me to my northern Autumns. In any case I find that ranting in verse about discomfort eases one’s mind a bit. Thanks again for these two gems!
Jeff, thank you very much for this. I still have a lot of England coursing through my veins, and that English part of me loves weather talk… especially complaining about it. It’s a pastime for Brits! I will admit to loving Autumn, whether in Texas or the UK… variety is (after all) the pumpkin-spice of life… or something like that. I’m thrilled you enjoyed these Autumn offerings.
Brilliant as ever Susan. It is always the pumpkin that symbolises Halloween over here. I hate, so much, the plastic ones with the pathetic LED light and unlike yourself, I love the scooping out ritual although I find eating any of it quite revolting. That photo from Evan is fabulous and love your so cheeky take on “Mists and mellow fruitfulness”
Jeff, it’s always great to hear from you. I am so happy my cheeky liberty with Keats’ title wasn’t lost on you… I simply couldn’t help myself. I’m still acquiring a taste for pumpkin pie (the Thanksgiving favourite)… but I have found a pumpkin spice cheesecake recipe that’s more palatable… rather delicious, actually… so I’m getting there on the pumpkin-eating front. As for LED-lit plastic pumpkins… I’m surprised that’s not an arrestable offence in the UK… people have been put away for far less! That really is offensive. LOL Jeff, thank you very much indeed!
Love these! Living in Texas myself, I can absolutely relate to the first… as you know, the only seasons here in Texas are summer and February! Every line says this so well.
Then, after you say, “ The only sign that Fall has spiced the skies/Is purchases of pumpkins on the rise,” you have “Ode to a Pumpkin!” I’m among those who “crave [its] fragrant flesh in steaming soup,” yet I love the word “plumptious” to describe pumpkins, as well as the reference to Cinderella.
I think “plumptious” should be added to the dictionary… too bad its editors are too busy redefining “man” and “woman” to care.
Joshua, I’m thrilled you enjoyed these Autumn poems and know my first one must have you nodding in wholehearted agreement… phew it’s in the darn 90s!! What the heck?! I’m hoping we’re going to dip down to the low 80s by Christmas.
I’m going to make some pumpkin soup this year (I wonder if you can eat it chilled sort of gazpacho-style?) but only if my coach and footmen don’t arrive by Thanksgiving… I have high hopes.
As for the word ‘plumptious’… yes dictionary editors… leave ‘woman’ and ‘man’ alone and get plumptious in there pronto!! I don’t know how poets have managed without it!
Joshua, thank you… and enjoy your pumpkin soup!
Susan, your pumpkin ode gives me the feeling of a country Western “Phantom of the Opera.”
“Whispers of the night” are music and there are “flashing torchlight eyes of flame” instead of a crashing chandelier. Soprano Christine becomes a poet Cinderella with her local prince rather than a choice between phantom and childhood friend. I think I’ve decided on a movie for All Hallows’ Eve.
Wow Margaret! What an amazing take on my ode. I’ve been to see the Phantom several times in London, and think it’s time for a change of scenery… I think you may well have a hit on your hands! Thank you for the nostalgic smile and the new view conjured by your Wild-West imagination.