Here's a Halloween poem, a bit early.

The Dark Orchard

I used to live in a old house
Perhaps sixty or seventy years old
From the 1910’s or 1920’s
And it had an orchard

Almost as old and gone to seed
Almost as long
Grown up with low limbs
And brush, and small trees
The ground was spongy with
Rotting apples
Smelling of
Rotting Cider
Full of the sound of
Wasps

There was a hostility about the place
As though, having been abandoned by Man
Man was no longer welcome

And the trees seemed to watch
And to whisper among themselves
As though waiting
For some Man to go there alone
In the dark
Or in a storm

To the point where
I worried for the deer
That browsed there at night
That the trees might sense them
And decide to get in
A bit of practice

I've been studying to have my poetic license renewed, so I will post a series of poems. The first has two versions, because I can't decide which I like the best. The first version has a quality like transliterated haiku, which I like, but the second version flows better:

Embrace

I saw a glove
Stomped into the parking lot
Of an old warehouse

The fingers spread like wings
At first I thought
It was a bird

It grasped the asphalt
To its palm
The way a dead bird
Clutches the earth
To its breast


(Alternate Version)

I saw a glove
Stomped into the parking lot
Of an old warehouse

At first I thought
It was a bird

The fingers spread like wings
And grasped the asphalt
To its palm

The way a dead bird
Clutches the earth
To its breast