Keats and Covid: poems about autumn

In Competition No. 3169 you were invited to submit a poem about autumn in which the last letter of each line becomes the first of the following line.

Many of you wrote in praise of what the novelist Charlotte Mendelson has described as ‘the loveliness of rotting nature’; a time when nature feels at its most alive. But, in this gloomiest of autumns, there were haters too.

Honourable mentions go to Richard Spencer, Tim Raikes, John Priestland, R.M. Goddard, Phillip Warke, David Silverman, David Shields, Maggie McLean, Paul Freeman, Janine Beacham and Hannah Killough (aged ten). The best, in a hotly contested week, are printed below and earn their authors £30 apiece.

‘Season of mists’ — OK, give it a rest.This autumn John Keats’ vision is reset.Time to recalibrate ‘maturing sun’.Nature’s surrendered to the internet.  Tracking down Covid tests, checking the news;such now our seasonal activity.Yet solemnly we trace our future’s track,knowing ‘late flowers’ might be the last we’ll see.