{"sf1_id":1705582,"sf2_id":"pnGaZMey","title":"Autumn Interrupts","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":276,"posted_at":"2021-04-11T17:22:00.000Z","tags":["Horror","Limerick","Poetry","sonnet"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1705582-autumn-interrupts","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/pnGaZMey","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/6c/e1/6ce1c7d0-6be8-4f2a-9f54-978c47236339","description":"#24 of poetry\n\nThis one is pretty old. I just remember I wrote it because someone, I forget who, said that the Limerick as a form was necessarily a joke and couldn't be made scary.","content":"It's easy to forget what autumn means  \nIn tired lands of sun-stuffed tedium;  \nAssassin breeze the blackfly never weans,  \nThe forecast is extremely medium.  \nIt's easy to forget those ragged skies  \nCrushed, throttled, splintered by the frigid light  \nThat setting, cold to scent and warm to eyes,  \nLets slip the wind and stirs dead leaves to flight.  \nAnd so-\n\n-I went out walking in the night  \nThat was not born yet. All the trees were white.  \nThe roofs above  \nMy head were bare.  \nThere was no color  \nAnywhere  \nSave only in  \nThe twisting air  \nWhere summer's ghost was bright.\n\nThere was a narrow alley on my way  \nAnd there I met a man who bid me stay.  \nI saw his blood  \nand bones interred.  \nI passed both by  \nwithout a word.  \nAhead of me  \nhis footsteps heard  \nA thousand miles away.\n\nEach homeward path I desperate turned my face  \nHe stood before me, and in every place-\n\n_\"The street-dust is dragging like lace_  \n_On some dark tangled edge of this place._  \n_My gut is a stone._  \n_The night is alone._  \n_Come morning, they won't find a trace.\"_\n\n-He told me I  \nwould die alone  \nAnd never call  \nmy life my own.  \n_\"Remember me\"_  \nAnd he was gone  \nI ran. Nothing gave chase.\n\nI left the twisting shadow streets behind.  \nI went to wash the fingers from my mind.  \nAnd so-\n\n-whatever phantom forms may wind  \nOut of the cooling earth to hang in air  \nWith leaf-ghosts dangle from the thin moon rind.  \nSome see them and move on. Some are still there.  \nThe inmost heart of autumn, hardened still,  \nI wanted to forget. I never will.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1704011-the-starling-master.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1705589-ballade-of-three-birds.json"}}