New poem, once again on the topic of Autumn.

Advice for a Fall Afternoon

Beware
the maple tree,
engulfed in leaves
of flame

consumed but
not truly afire

like the bush
in the desert
that called
to Moses,

changing his life

and mankind

in a few short
moments.

Most foliage never
speaks

(as Moses surely knew)

but if it
has a voice
within the flame,

don’t expect small
talk.

Oooh, Steph. I like that. Nothing real concrete to offer, but that's just nifty.

Me too, Steph. Beauty-ful.

Thanks! Poetry is very new for me. And since my prose is so rambly and verbose, my terse verse (heh) doesn't quite sound right. I have to get used to what my poetry sounds like.

Teppy, that was cool. Loved that last line. "Don't expect small talk." Hee.

Nice poem, Steph. I find it interesting that you chose to use Biblical references.

And now for my question: I wrote a poem last night, and I'm not sure about it at all. I don't know if it makes any sense, and I'm really not sure about how it should be layed out if it does. So far I have three main options that I can see.

1) keep it all in small letters, no caps or punctuation at all, and let people figure it out on thier own (the first way, the way I saw it while I was writing the first draft).

acidaura
cutstoic
andichar
unumbero
sarcasms
tighttit
inmeandi
coldstic

2) Normal poetry, with capitals the beginning of every line and punctuation in, including spaces:

Acid aura
Cutstoic
And I char,
U number, O,
Sarcasm's
Tight tit
In me and I
Coldstic.

3)To bring out the 'hidden' meaning, with capitals:

AcidaurA
CutstoiC
AndIchaR
UnumberO
Sarcasm'S
Tight tiT
InmeandI
ColdstiC

Which one do you think works best? Do any of them work? Would a mixture of types be better?

Could you put it in three columns across? Or would that be too obvious?

Like this, you mean?

A cidaur A
C utstoi C
A ndIcha R
U number O
S arcasm' S
T ight ti T
I nmeand I
C oldsti C

No, sorry I wasn't clear. I was thinking all three variations in three separate columns, so the reader could revel in the cleverness of it. :-)

acidaura____Acid aura______AcidaurA
cutstoic____Cutstoic_______CutstoiC
andichar____And I char,____AndIchaR
unumbero___U number, O,___UnumberO
sarcasms___Sarcasm's______Sarcasm'S
tighttit_____Tight tit_______Tight tiT
inmeandi____In me and I____InmeandI
coldstic_____Coldstic.______ColdstiC

Thusly, more or less, allowing that some people can actually use HTML?

Three+ edits for formatting.