Regarding "October"

This month's "Poem-of-the-Month" at CrowVoice.com is titled "October." This may be the most poetic of months. Old T.S. may have April pegged as the cruelest, though I disagree, but there's something about October, something pensive and sadly beautiful, that makes for putting pen to paper and filling it with sighs and longings.

The poem "October" is a bit of departure for me, in that it's on the surface, a piece of fiction. The characters and events are made up. Fabricated. Imagined out of the hunger for poetry in a mood that can be best characterized as October. However, I agree with an e-mail I just received:

"I read your October poem…how real to me it felt. I was that woman and I was that man ..."

We've all been there. Unwilling to admit the failure of a relationship. Unable to accept the truth. I had no one in mind when I wrote it. I had everyone in mind. I had you in mind.

I was looking out of the window at the bar. I was listening to quiet jazz. I was working at the gas station, watching the guy at the pay phone.

"And I'm lost in the window
I hide on the stairway
I hang in the curtain
I sleep in your hat
And no one brings anything
Small into a bar around here."