Tag Archives: poetry

Seasonal Verse

Fall in upstate New York is a season of heightened senses as nature produces its splendid display of vibrant colors. For me, autumn is a time of reflection, often inspiring me to write poetry.

Einhorn Family Walk at Syracuse University. Photo by Francis DiClemente.

Here are some fall-themed selections.

Stadium Nights

Friday nights in Central New York,
crumpling leaves of bursting gold
and breathing in the October cold
as a pigskin spirals tight
and shadows collide under stadium lights.

Small town pride surges like an offensive line,
bursting open a gaping hole,
springing the halfback
en route to the chalk-lined goal.
And fathers perched in the stands
holler until hoarse and reminisce
about the glory days, when they wore the jerseys—
bloodied and mud-caked—
and walked with shoulders back,
receiving cheers as Friday night gladiators.

Under the bleachers, first-time kisses
are punctuated with quivers and giggles
in between swigs of peppermint schnapps.
Holding hands means everything,
and halftime comes far too quick.
The curfew looms as the scoreboard clock winds down.
Just five more minutes you say,
then head home grudgingly.

Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems by Francis DiClemente (Finishing Line Press, 2019)

Autumn Acknowledgment

On this glorious autumn day—
with bright sunshine, blue skies
and refulgent orange, red and golden leaves
shimmering on the trees—
I am not thinking about
freezing temperatures and lake effect snow.
I know winter will come.
I know we cannot stave off
the inevitable despair that accompanies
the turn of the seasons.

But winter is not here yet.
So I will enjoy this fall weather
while I still have the chance—
while the green grass remains uncovered
and while the warm sunshine lasts,
at least for another day.

Falling Leaf

The golden maple leaf
fell to the ground
in front of my feet,
making a slapping sound.
It greeted me
on this frosty November morning,
reminding me that one day
I too will lie on the ground,
and others will pass by
without stopping
or looking down.

Sidewalk Stories by Francis DiClemente (Kelsay Books, 2017).

The Last Leaf

The last maple leaf
did not want to leave the tree,
even though his mother
told him it was time to go,
time to break free from the limb
and fall to the ground.

The little leaf said,
“Why, why must I leave
when I can still cling to this tree?”

“Because,” his mother replied,
“it’s part of life, the cycle of nature—
we drop to the ground during fall
and return in the spring.
So come on, let go.”

“I will not. I will not,” the little leaf said.

But a stiff wind stirred and the leaf
lost his grip and twirled to the earth,
falling into his mother’s grasp.

“See, that’s not so bad, is it?” his mother said.
“No Mom,” the little leaf said.
But then he asked, “Mom, am I still a leaf
if I’m no longer connected to the tree?”

Outward Arrangements: Poems by Francis DiClemente (independently published, 2021).

And I’ll wrap up with a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.

October Day

Oh Lord, it is time, it’s time. It was a great summer.
Lay your shadow on the sundials,
and on the open fields let the winds go!

Give the tardy fruits the hint to fill;
give them two more Mediterranean days,
drive them on into their greatness, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house by now will not build.
Whoever is alone now will remain alone,
will wait up, read, write long letters,
and walk along sidewalks under large tress,
not going home, as the leaves fall and blow away.

Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated and with commentary by Robert Bly. New York: Harper Perennial, 1981.

 

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Poecabulary Add Ons

For people in the Syracuse area, I’ll be doing a poetry reading and film screening this Saturday, Oct. 4., at 5 p.m. at Parthenon Books on Salina Street.

Poecabulary front cover.

I’ll talk about the genesis and evolution of my minimalistic book project Poecabulary and then screen the documentary short Ralph Rotella: The Sole of Syracuse, co-directed by my former Syracuse University colleague Shane Johnson.

Ralph’s work bench. Photo Credit: Shane Johnson.

And speaking about Poecabulary, the book was released about three months ago. In preparing for the upcoming talk, I thought about a couple of questions I would like audience members (and you as well) to ponder: Do two words on a page constitute poetry? And can Poecabulary be considered an actual book, a real poetry collection?

And even though I succeeded in spitting these vocabulary words out of my system, I can’t stop writing down other word pairings. It’s a ceaseless literary project and an incurable disease.

So here are some other combinations that have emerged since the book’s publication in June.

Alfresco
Alfredo

Adversary
Anniversary

Ample
Amble

Below
Bowel

Cancel
Cancer

Death
Dearth

Density
Destiny

Erotic
Erratic

Fruitful
Futile

Garret
Garrote

Harass
Harness

Honor
Horror

Impotent
Important

Inventive
Invective

Manic
Magic

Monetary
Monitory

Parish
Perish

Passivity
Positivity

Revel
Revile

Share
Shame

Soap
Soup

Spared
Speared

Tragedy
Trajectory

Uncoupled
Uncounted

Vitreous
Virtuous

Wallet
Walleye

Widow
Window

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Rilke on Autumn

Two poems for fall by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Autumn

The leaves fall, fall as from far,
Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;
They fall with slow and lingering descent.

And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls
From out the stars into the Solitude.

Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall
And lo! the other one:—it is the law.
But there is One who holds this falling
Infinitely softly in His hands.

Rainer Maria Rilke.

Day in Autumn

After the summer’s yield, Lord, it is time
to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials
and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.
Direct on them two days of warmer light
to hale them golden toward their term, and harry
the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

Whoever’s homeless now, will build no shelter;
who lives alone will live indefinitely so,
waking up to read a little, draft long letters,
and, along the city’s avenues,
fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

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Praise for Poecabulary

I’m not a fan of the promotional aspect of writing, but I want to share this positive review of Poecabulary because the Reedsy Discovery reviewer, Stephen Dudas, summarized exactly what I was trying to achieve with my wacky experimental book project. Nearly all of the time, I’m tossing words in the dark, hoping they find their way to readers. So it’s nice, and rare, when my stray verbal arrows hit the mark.

Poecabulary front cover.

Some of my favorite pull quotes:.

“Francis DiClemente’s Poecabulary is a stunning example of that now all-too-rare book in our contemporary poetry landscape: a genuine, focused experiment with specific elements of the English language.

“… Poecabulary is fully intended as a collaborative experience (all reading is, of course, but collaboration is at the forefront of this particular collection). To read the collection is to be brought into a creative and intellectual game. What is similar? What is different? What does one word mean to the other? What arguments, stories, commentaries, dreams, songs, etc. might spin out from where these words meet?

“Poecabulary does what any good poetry collection should—it offers itself up as the site of interactive play between a poet’s invitation and a reader’s interpretation.”

—Reviewed by Stephen Dudas, Reedsy Discovery

 

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The Point of Regret

I have a terse poem published in the Summer 2025 issue of The Soliloquist Journal. A paperback version is also for sale with a 15-percent discount code: RE5RQ6G15.

“The Point of Regret” appears in my unpublished philosophical poetry collection entitled Embrace the Futility. It’s similar in theme to another short poem, “Resolution of Existence,” which appears in my 2021 book Outward Arrangements: Poems.

Resolution of Existence

You must
Live the life
You have
And not
The one
You want.

 

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Some Poems Celebrating Summer

Stanwix Street

A vanilla ice cream cone
covered with sprinkles of dirt,
a handful tossed by small, grimy hands
across a chain-link fence.
A blond child’s whine—
flat, constant and eerily melodic.
The girl then turning away,
screaming upstairs to her mother,
sound asleep in the mid-August heat,
the lime-green curtains fluttering in the
second-story window of the adjacent brick building.
The child just standing there, scraping off the grit
and licking the melting residue
trickling down her forearm.

Streetlight Paradise

Chalk marks on sidewalks,
fireflies stalking the night,
creaky porch steps,
chain-link nets and
the crack of the bat.

Sour-puss lips break a smile,
then sneak a kiss.
It’s cool to hold hands with
the girl of your dreams,
the one who says she’ll
love you forever.

But forever is too far away.
Our time is now—a passing moment
when our parents look the other way.

Summer fun in the springtime
of our lives, sucking it all in
under this streetlight paradise.

The Mystery of the Wolf

A summer evening in upstate New York—
a backyard sprinkler hisses
while the smell of fresh-cut grass
is pungent and delicious.
Crickets chirp and a coffee-colored mare
snorts from across the barbed-wire fence.

I am alone, kicking a soccer ball,
when a gray wolf emerges from
the high weeds lining the fence.
I try to run, but my legs lock up,
and I tumble to the ground.

The wolf circles me,
then sweeps in on my limp frame.
I can hear its stomach growling
as it hovers over me.
The tongue is extended
and drool splashes my face.
The wolf takes my neck in its mouth,
but does not bite down.

And I wake up in my bed,
thankful that the encounter is just a dream.
I am safe, and no wolf invades my room.
Yet I remain troubled,
afraid of closing my eyes,
drifting back to sleep
and ending up at the mercy
of another predator.

Minors

Toledo in July—a Mud Hens game:
Big league dreamers with names like Bubba, Fausto and Tyler
toil away in the minors,
hustling for the scouts perched behind home plate,
diving for line drives and sliding head first,
with egos in check and mouths full of dirt.

Pillars of artificial light frame the setting sun,
and from beyond the azure sky,
the ghosts of washed-up utility infielders
and middle relief pitchers
pull for these hard luck Triple-A players.
They want to scream, “Take heed, savor it now,
for this is the best you will ever be.”
But they’re under orders to keep their mouths shut,
and can only blow a home run foul every once in a while.

The steel girder stands are filled with a crowd
that still believes in this clockless game.
They listen intently for the crack of the bat,
and sing with all their might during the seventh-inning stretch.

Little kids with hot pink shorts and noisy flip-flops
smear their faces with mustard and hug Muddy the mascot.
They scatter peanut shells and scamper after foul balls,
and for them the score is merely an afterthought.

The summer night comes to a close
with a game-ending double play and a fireworks barrage.
The fans file out and load into their cars,
going back to real life with memories of Mud Hens
now stitched in the seams of their minds.

(All four poems were previously published in Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems, Finishing Line Press, 2019).

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Poecabulary Book Released

I am excited to announce the publication of my new book, a minimalistic, experimental poetry collection entitled Poecabulary.

Here is the description:

Poecabulary is a minimalist poetry collection that blurs the line between vocabulary and verse. Words appear in unexpected pairings, creating connections that surprise, challenge, and invite reflection. Each combination is a deliberate act of linguistic play, where alliteration, sound, appearance, randomness, rhyme, and meaning collide.

The author explores how similar or opposing words interact, encouraging readers to discover their interpretations and associations. Both a playful exercise and a meditation on language, Poecabulary celebrates the power and flexibility of words.

This collection will resonate with language lovers, poetry enthusiasts, and anyone curious about how words shape meaning. Sample pairings include Autistic/Artistic, Diffident/Different, Lonely/Lovely, Perfection/Perception, and Reject/Respect.

Poecabulary front cover.

The book began with my obsession with vocabulary and discovering connections between word pairings.

As part of my compulsive, lexical behavior, I check four different online dictionaries daily for their “Word of the Day” features:

TheFreeDictionary.com
Dictionary.com
Merriam-Webster.com
WordGenius.com

This project is an example of how the crazy ideas that percolate and fester in my brain are the ones I need to chase, since they are the ones that elevate my creativity and spur risk taking.

Here is the author’s note from the front of the book:

Obsessed with vocabulary, I created this work as wordplay—an exercise to incite imagination and elicit connections in the reader’s mind. I consider the word pairings a hybrid of vocabulary and poetry—which could be labeled as “Poecabulary” or “Voetry.”

Quite honestly, I don’t even know if you can call Poecabulary a book, but I do believe some “word nerd” readers may enjoy it. And it’s a quick read. Although it’s 190 pages long, the word count is less than 650.

I would also love to collaborate with a visual artist who could make large-scale paintings featuring select word pairings from the collection. I could see the text-based works hanging in a gallery space.

Here are a few of my favorite word combinations:

Autistic/Artistic

Diffident/Different

Lonely/Lovely

Perfection/Perception

Reject/Respect

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Nerve Conduction Study Conversation

I received a nerve conduction study last week related to symptoms of my rheumatoid arthritis. The bearded electromyography (EMG) technician, Mark, had dark hair and an athletic build, and he wore glasses. We made small talk while he placed electrodes on me, stimulated the nerves with mild electrical shocks, and measured the results on a computer.

When I asked him where he was from, he said he grew up in Syracuse and went to a local high school. “It was a really good school,” he said, noting its academic and athletic excellence. “But I didn’t appreciate it at the time. I was kind of a screw up.”

He also explained that his mother was a custodian at Syracuse University and how he could have gone to college there for free, but didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. “I blew it,” he said. “But I had to find my own way.”

And then he said a jewel of a statement regarding regret. “If you focus too much on regrets, you don’t appreciate the life you currently have.” Or he may have said, “If you focus too much on regrets, you don’t live the life you currently have.”

Regret is a recurring theme in my poetry. I think it’s something all adults at a certain age wrestle with—this idea of ambitions versus reality.

Camera Angle

What would I choose
if I were given a chance
to lead a different life?

What mistakes
would I correct?
What new road
would I take?

But you can’t splice
the scenes of your life
to edit the past.
You can only point
the camera forward
and zoom into the future.

(The Truth I Must Invent, Poets Choice, 2023)

Formula for Success

Life can
be tolerable
when you
relinquish
aspiration
and settle for
acceptable.

(Outward Arrangements: Poems, independently published, 2021)

Shift in Thought

At some point
you have to
deal with the
Who You Are
instead of the
Who You Want To Become.

By now the
form is fixed.
You are
complete as is.
Don’t expect
anything else.
Don’t hope
for anything more.

(Outward Arrangements: Poems, independently published, 2021)

 

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