November is upon us.

It is October. The leaves are changing colors, from green to orange, they wither and die. They give up on life and jump from their branches where they lie helpless until passersby trample them underfoot or the wind whooshes them away at a whim. School is well underway and students bemoan their professors and complain about how much homework they must do. And November looms large in my mind. NaNoWrimo is comes again. I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish it this year. I'm in a few classes that are taking a lot of my writing time. One of them is a Creative Writing class, so at least that's good. I'm still going to try. I've got a pretty cool story idea that I want to try out. It's comic bookie-ish idea. My premise is that the villains have won, super heroes are either dead or in hiding, and the badguys are slowly destroying the world. One villain realizes this can't be allowed to continue. It's his story. I think it'll be a lot of fun to write. Thinking about plot and whatnot now. Anyway...here's a poem I read this month. I write poetry now, apparently.

I am told I speak well

I follow the rules my teachers

And their teachers and their teachers taught

I pronounce my ings and errs

I enunciate each syllable

I speak well

But I think my grandfather

His voice pleasant and slow like change

As he savored each word

Ignoring diction and the rules

Told stories filling as Sunday dinners

His speech comforting as old jeans

He spoke well

As knowledge and history trickled

From his tongue like revelation

He ain’t nevah read my books

Or my teachers

And I don’t speak like him

So did he speak well

When he sat me on his knee

And told me of the time he spent

In ‘nam his eyes far off

Unseeing and seeing too much

Did he speak well

When he shook the ghosts away

And I could feel them

Those ghosts grasping clawing

Trying to take root like weeds

When he asked if I want breakfast

Pancakes and sirp

Not syrup with two syllables

the way I say it

Did he speak well

When the words rolled together

Like pools of honey

And you could feel the rhythm

And his emotion

even when he ain’t got no diction

He spoke well

He spoke good as he was able

And because of him I stand before you judged

Before I open my mouth

And surprised when I do

It saddens me because

My grandfather is not in my speech

And sometimes I wish he was

Because he spoke real good

And the stories he told me

As memorable as homer or Shakespeare

And because of him

I know

 Poems seem longer than they are.