October and How He Deceives

Things in October are seldom what they seem.
Like today, for an example, with all this heat
of July on October first, humid, oppressive
tropic-like sauna, as October’s supposed
to be cool fall leaves with a hint of frost,
a windy driven transition from summer
scorch to the chill eradicating gnats
and midges, tamping mosquitoes
into submission lest less blood
be drawn…yet October does
deceive like some toothy
con man on the corner,
with a shell game where
you have to find the pea,
like a striped-suited rapid
talking seller of used Buick’s,
like some month unable to make
up its mind…a competitor, perhaps
of April’s own capricious whims wherein
rain turns to snow, and freak snows blanket 
the north, and now October says, I’ll show
you!  Yet light grows short and darkness
comes at seven thirty—a fine theme for
mutual astonished conversation, with
October listening from the treetops,
where green grudgingly gives way
to the riot of autumn hues, which
is to be expected, which is to be
savored.  Yet one thing remains
true:  Things in October are
seldom what they seem.


31 Lines
Writer’s Cramp Winner
10-2-19