Autumn Song, Redux

As you sit at your desks and do what you do,
I am raking leaves and stepping in pooh.
As through the leaves I gamely do slog,
No time for Facebook, Twitter or blog.
If bad poesy’s your bag, here’s an oldie for you.
If it offends, just scrape from your shoe.



The last leaves have fallen from their perches on high,
And litter the ground right up to his thigh.
In their legions and armies they boldly stack.
Small children and dogs have to turn back.
As he thinks of his wife it gives him the lumps
She can't go to work with leaves on her pumps!

He rattles the heavens with a mighty cry.
“If you weren’t already dead, now you would die!”
He straps on his vacuum, the dreaded El Toro.
(Which he had to buy since he couldn’t borrow.)
He falls upon them from hillock to gulch
And grinds the quivering foe to a powdery mulch.


Like the heroes of old he absorbs all his licks,
Leaf dust up the nose and bites from the ticks.
As he lays about him, he considers his shoe.
Oh, no! He’s stepped in the neighbor’s dog’s pooh.
He stops for a sec to consider this scandal.
He wonders if noble Caesar,as he slaughtered the Vandal,
Had to stop to clean dog shit off of his sandal.


For weeks and weeks the grim battle roils
On and on the suburban Hercules toils.
At missing his football and baseball, he curses.
He is caught in an epic with too many verses.
As the Aeolian blast delivers the neighbors' pile,
“I’ll bet they’ll miss their cat,” he says with a smile.

The bags of the fallen line the drive.
Oak, maple, cherry, none made it alive.
He shoulders El Toro and surveys the field.
He is glad he fought on and never did yield.
His chest swells with pride like mighty El Cid
Then his wife whispers: “Next year, hire a kid.”