Author Archives: Francis DiClemente

The Casualties of Autumn

It’s the season of beautiful colors, exquisite light and streaming A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. While returning home from a recent jog, the piles of leaves in my neighborhood incited an idea for a poem. Fortunately, I had a pen and some paper to capture the idea before it slipped away.

The Casualties of Autumn

Every leaf strewn in a pile
collected at the curb
had a life before it
separated from the tree
and twirled to the earth.
Is there a home reserved
for the departed souls of leaves—
a place of repose
for the casualties of autumn?

 

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Falling Back

To mark the end of Daylight Saving Time, I present a poem inspired by autumn scenery. I drafted this poem more than 25 years ago while living with my sister in Toledo, Ohio. I have revised it multiple times over the years, never satisfied with the final result. While this version may not be perfect, I think it’s about the best I can do, and so I release it here.

Falling Back (2024)

Alone on an empty school playground in Toledo, Ohio,
my worn-out sneakers shuffle on asphalt
as I practice left-handed hook shots
on a bent basketball rim with a rusted chain-link net.
The sound of the bouncing ball reverberates
off the school’s red brick façade,
as my reflection jumps out at me in the first-floor windows
adorned with orange paper jack-o’-lanterns.

A towering oak tree with branches like octopus tentacles
observes me as I heave an air ball from three-point land.
It studies my movements while a sharp wind
strips away its cloak of golden-brown leaves.

The cold sticks to my fingertips as I lick them
to get a better grip on the Spalding rubber ball.
And with my nose running incessantly and my chest heaving,
I swallow the chill in the air, trapping it deep inside my lungs.

I pick up my dribble—then stop, smell, look and listen.
Streetlights flicker on in the suburban neighborhood,
and across the road, a pumpkin is perched
on the porch of a modest white house.
The scent of burning leaves wafts in the air.
Charcoal-gray clouds brood in the sky,
and on the western horizon, near a row of pine trees,
there’s a feathering of soft pink light.

At the nearby park, soccer goals stand naked and netless,
and on the gravel softball field,
silence reigns on the base paths and outfield grass.
In the schoolyard, monkey bars are free of tiny, groping hands,
and empty swings sway in the stiff breeze—
calling out for the children to return.

But summer delight has long since passed,
and now Daylight Saving Time concludes again,
with me falling back to the days of my youth in Rome, New York.
I remember two-hand-touch football at Franklyn’s Field,
Friday nights watching the Rome Free Academy Black Knights
trounce visiting opponents under bright stadium lights,
blades of grass and windshields glazed with morning frost,
and autumn’s first taste of a juicy Macintosh.
There is magic and harmony in nature’s ever-spinning cycle.
I need only to look around,
and I find myself back in upstate New York—
my body planted in Ohio, but my mind
transported home to my native land.

Now, since autumn is on my mind with another page of the calendar being ripped, October giving way to November, I want to share some family photos from Halloween.

Colin Joe walking in his school parade.

It was a special day for our family since our eight-year-old autistic son, Colin, participated in a parade at his elementary school and was excited and eager to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

Colin Joe dressed as a doctor for Halloween.

In other years, we had to drag him out of the house. This year, dressed in his doctor’s costume, he slipped on his sneakers and gripped his pumpkin candy bucket, leading Mom and Dad in search of treats.

Pam and Colin, Halloween 2024.

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Fall Book Finds

I made a couple of finds at the Little Free Library on my way home from a jog today. The classic children’s book Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and Forever by Judy Blume were nestled in the box. I’ve been wanting to read some Judy Blume novels since watching the recent documentary Judy Blume Forever.

But this donated copy was missing the first two pages. I felt like Alvy in Annie Hall, who couldn’t watch a movie in a theater if he missed the opening credits. Fortunately, due to the power of Amazon and its “read sample” button, I scanned the first two pages of Judy’s book.

I didn’t take home the copy of Charlotte’s Web because I read the story within the last couple of years. But a note on the flip side of the front cover made me smile. It seemed like a discovery I should’ve made in late June, after the school year ended in the district, instead of in late October.

Dear Cheyenne,

It’s been a terrific year in 3rd grade.

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Mrs. V.

It brought back fond memories of Mrs. Voisine, my third-grade teacher at DeWitt Clinton elementary school in Rome, New York. Later on, I did the math and determined that Cheyenne would have graduated high school in 2015. I wonder what she’s doing now and if Mrs. V. is still teaching.

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Just: Urban Art

I was walking along Walton Street in downtown Syracuse earlier this week and saw a large painting in a window that captured my attention.

Just by Tyrone Johnson-Neuland.

The work is part of a “street gallery” curated by Midoma Gallery co-founder Marianna Ranieri-Schwarzer.

The piece is entitled Just by Tyrone Johnson-Neuland. It reminded me a little of the stock image I used for the cover of my poetry collection Sidewalk Stories (Kelsay Books, 2017).

I like the aquamarine space in the upper two-thirds of Johnson-Neuland’s painting with the running black horizontal and vertical lines.

And forgive my digression, but can anyone tell me if there is a difference between the colors Aqua, Teal and Turquoise? Or are the terms synonymous? I never know if I am using the correct color.

When I hear aqua or teal, I immediately think of the Miami Dolphins.

When I first noticed the painting in the window, the stenciled letter “Just” in the bottom right corner provoked a stream-of-consciousness fusillade of words that popped into my head.

Just by Tyrone Johnson-Neuland.

The first was “Just what?”
And, of course, “Just do it.” (Nike)

But then:

Just jump.
Just smile.
Just hug.
Just leave.
Just love.
Just care.
Just try.
Just live.
Just die.
Just f%$k off.
Just cry.
Just quit.
Just keep going.
Just(ine).

I love experiencing art in the city, and in this case, the work is an open-ended conversation whereby the viewer completes the piece that Johnson-Neuland so beautifully created.

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A Poem for Autumn

Now that we’re well into October, I’ve broken out the winter coat and put rock salt and shovels in the tool shed. While I love the light and colors of autumn, the change of season ushers in a feeling of trepidation. Fall to me is more than playoff baseball, apple fritters, and pumpkin-spiced coffee (or lattes or whatever other beverages they doctor with pumpkin spice).

Genesee Street Tree. Photo by Francis DiClemente.

Autumn is a time of preparation for yet another Central New York winter, which means heavy coats and boots, shoveling and salting, and trying to avoid slipping and shattering a hip.

With these thoughts heavy on my mind, I discovered an autumn-themed poem written by Emily Brontë. Something about the words made me think I could hear Robert Smith of The Cure singing them as lyrics to a song. And speaking of music: I will listen to the album October by U2 from start to finish to deepen my autumn mood.

Emily Brontë by Patrick Branwell Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

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Happy Accidents

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted anything on the blog. I’ve been inundated at my day job and working on some long-term writing projects in my off hours—plugging away in the messy, first-draft stage.

And in reviewing some old poems recently, I found a few that are my favorites. I thought I would share them.

They’re not the best poems in the world. I have no inflated sense about their worth.

But I love them because they were delivered to me almost in complete form, needing little revision. Instead of writing the poems, I merely served as a portal through which they could be born.

Phoenix landscape.

The first one I wrote under my carport in the parking lot at my apartment complex in Phoenix, Arizona (sometime between 1998 and 2001). I had been out driving late at night with the windows open, looking at the stars, smelling the desert sage, and listening to “Terrapin Station” by the Grateful Dead.

And these words came to me as I shut off the engine. I changed only two lines slightly in the final version.

Revelation (final)

A courtship of contempt,
filled with swirling fury and churning angst,
not halted by the hands of God.
Zealous rituals express unwavering faith,
and outstretched arms set hearts aflame.

Trees topple under a crescent moon—
a gleaming scythe that carves the frost-burnt night,
invoking stones to crush the gnarled root,
as fragments of identity rupture
into paralyzing self-hate.

Revelation (rough)

A courtship of contempt,
filled with swirling fury and churning angst,
not halted by the hands of God.
Zealous rituals express unwavering faith,
and outstretched arms set hearts aflame.

Trees topple under a crescent moon—
a gleaming scythe that carves the frost-burnt night,
invoking stones to crush the gnarled root,
as fragments of salvation disintegrate
into insurmountable self-hate.

Three other poems from that same Phoenix period follow. “Side Dish” emerged from one my evening walks before heading to work as a night shift news editor.

Inaudible Expression

A great sigh emitted,
arising and then dissipating,
but remaining forever unheard,
the echo of a soul reverberating,
in resignation of the inexorable.

The Feast of Life

Swallow the anguish.
Extract the juice
of this bitter fruit,
and expel the residue
upon the already
splattered canvas.

Side Dish

A mundane scene of modern living
played out one evening
while I walked along Ninth Street
near East Grovers Avenue in north Phoenix.

I heard the sound of a sliding glass door
opening from behind a retaining wall
running parallel to the sidewalk.

And although I had
no intention of eavesdropping,
I then overheard a woman call out:
“And now the great vegetable debate, green beans or corn?”

The question evoked a few seconds of silence,
followed by a man’s reply:
“Uh . . . both,” he said.

And as I turned the corner,
heading up the next block,
I was tempted to stop and ask the couple,
“Hey, what else is for dinner?”

The last poem popped into my head while driving eastbound on the New York State Thruway between Syracuse and Rome (sometime between 2006 and 2008).

Departure

Vagabond bones creakin’ down the road,
bound for somewhere in between,
a home-sweet-home dissenter,
relishing the unknown.

 

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Oh William!

For habitual cheapskates like me, you can’t beat Little Free Library. Today while out on my run/walk, I picked up a perfect condition hardcover copy of Oh William! by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout (who is also a Syracuse University College of Law alum). The book had been languishing on my Goodreads “want to read” list for years. But now I’ve become the Fred Sanford of books, stalking the different Little Free Library sites in my surrounding area for literary steals. I do contribute some of my “read” books to the drop-off sites (but nowhere near as many volumes as I claim). Happy Sunday reading everyone.

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout.

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Saturday Morning

I was reviewing some old poems and came across this little throwaway. I thought I’d share it as a reflection for today:

Saturday Morning

There’s something special
about Saturday mornings—
waking up with no demands to be met
and owning the hours you clock.
So what are your plans today?

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Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)

I recently finished reading the novel Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster. The work was published in 1905. I won’t give a review or provide a plot summary. You can look that up online or watch the 1991 movie starring Helen Mirren and Helena Bonham Carter.

Here’s an excellent description of the book I found through the Modernism Lab at Yale University.

What I want to share are a couple of excerpts that struck me. The first is from the third-person omniscient point of view (if my high school English reference is correct):

“For a wonderful physical tie binds the parents to the children; and—by some sad, strange irony—it does not bind us children to our parents. For if it did, if we could answer their love not with gratitude but with equal love, life would lose much of its pathos and much of its squalor, and we might be wonderfully happy.”

Angel in Asheville, NC. Photo by Francis DiClemente.

In the second quote, the character Philip Herriton is talking to Miss Abbott:

“Miss Abbott, don’t worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I’m one of them; I never did anything at school or at the Bar. I came out to stop Lilia’s marriage, and it was too late. I came out intending to get the baby, and I shall return an ‘honourable failure.’ I never expect anything to happen now, and so I am never disappointed. You would be surprised to know what my great events are. Going to the theatre yesterday, talking to you now—I don’t suppose I shall ever meet anything greater. I seem fated to pass through the world without colliding with it or moving it—and I’m sure I can’t tell you whether the fate’s good or evil. I don’t die—I don’t fall in love. And if other people die or fall in love, they always do it when I’m just not there. You are quite right; life to me is just a spectacle, which—thank God, and thank Italy, and thank you—is now more beautiful and heartening than it has ever been before.”

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In Honor of Abby

While walking on the campus of Le Moyne College last Sunday, I saw this bronze plaque with a poem in honor of a deceased student. The wording captured my interest.

Abby Bohnert ’19

Everyone’s friend.

Red lipstick and thick socks.
Giggles so loud they echo down the hall.
“She is Heaven and Hell’s love child.
Hold her. Name her poem.”

February 5, 1997 – August 8, 2016

A quick Google search shows that Abby died suddenly in 2016. And her mother passed away days later, making the story even more tragic.

I don’t have any wise words to share, except that Abby must have been a very special woman to be remembered with such a beautiful tribute on campus.

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