Decline and Fall
Chilled and solitary
I feel the Fall
A season flickering
A time cooling
Summer’s dissolute heat and aureate fury
Quenched
In long shadows
Darkly déjà vu
Gibbon scents the dusk
Crisp disquiet
Suddenly
October has pierced the city
Like Alaric’s Goths
Rude and barbarous
Yet
In its gusty fury
Lustral
— Zumwalt (15 October 1979)
zumpoems 
Comments on: "Decline and Fall" (13)
hail and welcome to the Autumn x
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incredible!! i absolutely enjoyed this one!! 😀
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Lustral indeed. wonderful continue…
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Another great poem. Cheers. Just a little quibble on Alaric’s Goths being Rude and barbarous. Although they probably were compared to modern standards, history suggests they were quite cultured for their time, and the Romans were often rude and barbarous themselves.
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Great poem! I love your word choices, “lustral”, “crisp disquiet”, “Rude and barbarous”, “gusty fury”. Very well crafted!!!
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Lovely words, full of feeling. Thank you
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love the choice of words, this piece is intense, love it…
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This choice of words is magnificent. Together they roll from the tongue beautifully. It is an absolute pleasure to witness the mastery, the intense rhythmic beauty that flows so easily from within you…. thank you for sharing….
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All,
Thanks for reading and the comments. Been without internet access for a while (knowing that I auto-scheduled several posts and don’t have access to wordpress at work — so will try to do my best to keep up with this blog and your blogs in the little free time I have on the weekends.
Thanks!
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Great poem, as usual. I hope you can continue posting. Losing your poetry would be a great loss to wordpress.
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Thomas,
Thanks for the very flattering comment on the Zumwalt poetry. Will try to ensure that any unpublished Zumwalt poems worth sharing continue to get posted here. That is my first priority, but definitely wish I had more time to respond to comments here and visit other poetry blogs more consistently.
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fabulous word painting. its hard for me to feel the scene from a warm country, but i can fimagine it.
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I really enjoyed this. Brilliant!
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