Winters Last Apple Poem by Mark Heathcote

As the world's dimming-dimensions
Grew dimmer and hurriedly, darker.
I saw a thing crimson as-it-sweetens.
Temptations apple waxing—brighter
The hour the date I don't remember
It might have been in mid-November.

Ah, immortality, naked on a branch?
Suspends heavenly that rotting heart
Whose flesh now weighs heavily blanch.
In time I guess it would also depart
Those lowly branches in which it hung
Static with pleasure and joy as it clung.

In red-shimmering shades of autumn
A spool of leaf's claret red, autumnal-gold
Spun wreaths around the trees serfdom.
Whilst a pungent; canker of air cajoled.
About; the glassy shell, both yoke and balm.
I watched—daily, until this last aplomb.

Fell burning like a midnight sun.
Sweet in my eyes, this golden affair
That even starlings didn't dare, thrum.
With feathered wings or tongue fanfare
From humble beginnings, a sanctum;
A bauble held aloft, the eyes of Satan.