November – A Poem(ish?)

(Note: I also posted this on Substack as well.)

Welp, had another little burst of poetic inspiration (Thanks, Zen In the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury), this time from going out to clean my car of snow (yes, in April) and getting buffeted by wind and struck with tiny stinging bits of snow from the nearest snowbank.

Otherwise, it was a surprisingly pleasant morning outside.

Anyway, I’m not sure it’s quite a poem or if it’s more a piece of flash fiction, and I may at some point try to revise it a bit more (I still don’t think “commonplace comedians” is quite doing what I want) but anyhow, here’s “November:”

“November”

by Stephanie Flint

I am angry.

I will wreck your ships.

I will send your leaves plummeting to frostbit dirt. Gray grass shall be buried under their damp blankets, and what pale green that strives to remain shall wither under desolate quilts of brown and yellow.

I will knock aside your trash bins and claim your forlorn cardboard boxes of stale, leftover pizza.

These will tumble and toss and fly, fly into my airspace, and you shall not know where they have been sent. They will fade a cold, dreary death into the grasp of winter; be forgotten.

But you will not forget me.

Grand men will tell tales to immortalize those lost to the wrecks. Lovely women will sing of lost leaves and clinging hopes. Commonplace comedians will provide needed laughter by recalling trash bins long tumbled past Sally’s yard.

The pizza, though, will be lost forever.

You will remember my gales of November.

As a note… the little bits of inspiration that I was picturing when I wrote this:

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot

“The Last Leaf” by Blackmore’s Night

“Trash Can Wind Meters” as seen on FacebookA reference both to the Fifth of November poem (which I know more from V for Vendetta than knowing the actual poem) and another reference to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

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Happy reading and writing! 📚

Spring Flight – A Poem

(Note: I also posted this on Substack, and then it occurred to me I could post it here… so now I’ve posted this in both places.)

I don’t fancy myself a poet. Usually if I’m writing poetry, it’s something of a song or ballad for one of my fantasy stories (or sometimes, in the case of The Singing Coil, sci-fi). But every once in a while the inspiration strikes.

In this case, I blame/thank reading “Zen: In the Art of Writing” by Ray Bradbury.

So today I have a poem I wanted to share, drafted somewhat in the spur of the moment, but collected from little moments on walks and memories. A little bit revised, but maybe I’ll return later to do more revisions.

“Flight of Spring”

by Stephanie Flint

Let go, she said
Let go into the wind
Hold bright

Summer days, Autumn Nights
lead into dark, and then to the white
of all covered in snow where night is gray and sky is dusk
an ever light reflection.

Hold Hold
Hold to the faint whisper
rattling a single leaf
clinging to bare limbs

Will not let go.

Until there, brief, a stirring
gossamer dress

Now leaves scratch concrete as they bounce along
in the lion’s roar of winds
approaching in her fury
of being suppressed
so long

She is back!

Tolerates the ice floes, the sculptured piles of sand and ice,
once fluffs of delicate snowflakes made jaded and weary

But they say
she is coming.

She is here!

Let her go, dancing and whirling into summer
she will return.