Falling Apart

The year has started to fall
apart.

Pointillistic bursting
of nuts and fruit.

Later, leaves
crunching underfoot.

Conker shells split,
release shiny mahogany kernels.

Oaks shed acorns
that hit hard ground with a crack.

It’s still warm enough for white butterflies.
Craneflies crowd windows or hang

in corners
from spindly alien legs.

Cooler mornings reveal cobwebs,
dewdropped now –
frosted soon.

Kim M. Russell, 3rd September 2026

Image by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

This Thursday Grace is our host for Meeting the Bar at the dVerse Poets Pub, with an (un)poetry form for all. She says that “with change in the air, this month we’re exploring the descort, a medieval French poetic tradition built around the idea of discord”.

Grace explains that “the descort is not defined by a fixed pattern of lines, rhyme, or meter. Instead, it is a poem of deliberate difference.” She has provided an example, a poem by Taylor Graham entitled ‘The Mother Lode’.

Our challenge is to write a descort, experimenting with, for example: varying line lengths; changing rhythms or meters; inconsistent rhyme schemes; different stanza shapes; shifts in voice or perspective; fragments alongside complete sentences; the use of another language; or dialect or unusual visual arrangements on the page.

We don’t need to use all of these techniques but should keep in mind this principle:  Let the discord mean something. Rather than creating chaos for its own sake, we should allow variations in the poem’s form to echo, resist, intensify, or embody the subject matter.

35 thoughts on “Falling Apart”

  3. We are on a tug of war here with season between summer, hailstorm and a bit of fall. I love how the opening line, fall apart, is echoed in seasonal change and sounds of crunching leaves, conker shells split and this line: Oaks shed acornsthat hit hard ground with a crack.

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  5. This is nothing short of amazing! I love the year starting to fall apart, how you separate the line ending fall from apart. Not only for the falling apart, but for putting them apart! Nice!

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    1. Thank you very much, Helen. Autumn is my favourite season. It’s raining this morning but we’re due some more heat next week – summer’s final hurrah, I think. I just hope the weather holds for my week with my daughter and grandsons.

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    2. Hi Gillena! For some reason, I can’t comment on your poem, so I’ll do it here: the image you chose to illustrate your descort is creepy, fitting with the opening line! I love the burst of activity in the middle of your poem: ‘Run run skip hop jump’ and the thought of greed going to another man’s party.

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    2. Hi Hank! For some reason I am unable to comment on Blogger today – it just won’t let me. So here is my comment on your poem: a stunning capture of the sense of personal discord in this ekphrastic descort,.

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