Trope

A trope tree, bearing tropes where leaves would be,

Appears to me as Autumn’s tarnished hearts

Are gradually charging the auburn fee

Whose sum is fallen skins, as Green departs.

I wait - and soon a trope is loosed to twist,

A paper drill bit spiral-slicing air;

Perhaps aware that it cannot desist,

Being deciduous beyond repair.

Unlike a leaf, this trope - now in my hand -

Blushes and says ‘I won’t blemish or rot.

I will stay fresh forever, a live strand

In the mind’s formaldehyde, unforgot.’

It’s plain to see this is a hopeless trope:

Craving a summit, barely on a slope.

Alternate Endings:

i

What hubris! Such audacious ego scope!

I’ll lay the blame for all this on the trope.

ii

Since I’m the one whose talent stands or falls

This trope alone cannot improve my scrawls.

iii

Beholding this ambition’s foolish scope

I’m shamed into disowning my keen trope.

iv

But, sad to feel that I admit no hope

It sinks into decay - thus dies my trope.

v

‘Doubtful’, I tell it, ‘as I’m the one whose

Lack of expertise makes certain you lose’.

vi

You will rot within a minute or two,

I say, and it begins to, right on cue.

vii

Hopeless, I tell the trope, this is my first

Sonnet, you won’t live very long un-nursed.