#sestina

[theriverspath]

First Night's Hunger

A sestina* written using prompts provided by @whickberstreetwriters and @ineffablyruined.

To paper I touch ink, Scribbling words feral, Fierce with hunger. My brow blossoms dew, Betraying memories wanton, A heart unraveled.

A heart unraveled And writ upon with fiery ink Casts down thoughts wanton. The deed recorded feral As the first day's dew, The first night's hunger.

The first night's hunger, Angelic restraint unraveled. Loss of it slicked my face as dew. Gluttony painted in gristled ink Summoned from you a look feral, Ignited in me a flame wanton.

Ignited in me a flame wanton, A temptation stoked eternal hunger, Caused cravings feral. Divine bonds unraveled. A new concord would itself ink Across my spirit as covering dew.

Across my spirit as covering dew Blossomed a blasphemy wanton. Beside Her name, 'nother in blazing ink Engraved by indelible hunger. The shame of it proved me unraveled. I feared myself a Fallen feral.

I feared myself a Fallen feral. Tears shed, a mourning dew. Terror showed my Faith unraveled. Then, comfort from source of appetite wanton. Crowing not for kindling hunger, A confidant scribing secrets in lemon juice ink.

I now ink this ancient hunger to a page, as wanton As 'twas that burning night you unraveled my feral greed. As the dew yet clings to Eden's walled-in green, it shall never dry.

~~~~~~~

*A sestina is a poem that dates back to twelfth century Europe. It has a strict form, involving the repetition of six words in a specific rotating order over six stanzas. It's often written in iambic pentameter and ended with a three-line stanza containing all six words. This was a new form for me, and I may have played fast and loose with the meter and the last stanza.

[asolareclipses]

So I wrote this poem in my writing class, and I, obviously, wrote about Solangelo. I’m not really good with poetry so it’s probably not great, it’s in the format of a Sestina (it’s what the professor wanted) so I hope it makes sense. It’s pretty much my first actual attempt at writing a poem, so don’t judge too much. Anyways it’s in Nico’s POV and I haven’t decided what to name it.

Hair that shines the color of gold,

matched with watercolor eyes so blue.

He is to me the sun,

that dispells the depths of my shadows.

No longer am I lost in a world so alone.

For where I go he follows, now I know love.

Before him I had feared the word love,

to me it was no treasure, no ruby or gold.

I hid from all I lost, I was best alone.

Until I met an ocean and drowned in its blue.

Thrust out of my home, deep in the shadows,

I began to look up and face the sun.

Never did I think I could know the Sun,

nor did I believe it was him I could love.

When he did not run so far from my shadows,

I realized his heart was truly that of gold.

Now I can imbrace this sky of blue.

Now with him I am no longer alone.

For most of my life I lived so alone,

hiding from the world and its sun.

I feared to let myself fall into the blue.

I feared it could not accept my love.

Still I reached out to touch hands more than gold,

afraid to be consumed once more with shadows.

This life of mine has been completely in shadows.

A solomn existence, fearing to be forever alone.

In those dark halls, I never found gold.

In those dark halls, there was no sun.

A loss all consuming, I couldn’t fathom love.

With an oceans rejection, I despised that blue.

Yet still my true love transformed from his blue,

ridding the darkness of my following shadows.

My life knew pain but now there’s love,

with the truth that im no longer alone.

I walk now with, alongside the sun,

into a world that wishes us gold.

Incomprehensibly accepting and loving its gold.

For who would think a star could love the sun?

These blue eyes and shadows, no longer alone.

[cheminer-poesie-cressant]

.

A la douceur du soir, j'ai retrouvé mon jardin

cet été qui m'allait si bien.

Vole, vole, sans ligne possible.

Et tout t'appartiendra !

.

(Dans la portée des ombres, extrait)

© Pierre Cressant

(vendredi 14 octobre 2005)

[berrystrawbs]

sestina 02

Three street corners down a boy is hilarious and the laugh in his chest feels something like fate. He chokes over the sound of his father, axed timber, shuts his eyes and dreams of life. Another new beginning. A mouth opens in his chest, cavernous urge to clarify because running cannot be the only option, safety is not a lost, lonely option. Because children find cowardice hilarious with eyes black and empty to clarify  that some shut-eye on tree bark is certain fate. The goodness is coming. Don’t stop beginning. He cries wax tears and ignores father. Timber- wood falls in the forest and anyway "Timber!" will cover a sound, if there is one, (an option to end or keep living), a beginning,  unkempt and he’s heavenly, hilarious.  Scream and the echo crawls back, slow fate muddled touch. He’ll beg: "Answer me. Clarify." He joins Mama in the kitchen, early morning to clarify (wear a lie) he wasn’t out kissing boys last night, just timber like daddy, machine-cog turned eye-to-eye back to fate. “You’d say, Mama, if there was another option?” She laughs and he smiles but it’s not hilarious  and there’s a new feeling like a disease beginning, huddled deep in his chest and it’s only just beginning to rain. When the water’s gone, fog-windows will clarify what it is to ache when a boy calls him hilarious with a smile in his eyes, sunlit dark timber  or similar. To wonder if this is an option, for a boy to look like he’d swallow down fate, like he’d exhale it through a sigh and fate would see to it that he leapt, ending beginning. To test if he’d do it all over, given the option. Or if he’d be honest with one chance to clarify  that forest-felled favor splinters into ax-hewn timber. And he’d laugh like this boy was someone hilarious. His voice fighting fate, two-to-two to clarify: this is his beginning. Silent fallen timber  will scream an option. He’ll smile. Hilarious.

[alwaysbemybae]

SESTINA FOR GOOD OMENS FANS

Let’s peek at our happy ending. A cottage

in the South Downs. A midday bubble bath

for two, who chortle now at their dates gone wrong,

at the shenanigans this ineffably matched

couple get into, like after dinner,

when—surprise!—it’s a double proposal!

How do they get to this double proposal,

warmly ensconced in their cozy cottage?

It’s a wondrous, dangerous route: a dinner

of ox-rib, a bullet-catch, hellfire, a bath

in holy water. Dark wings unfurl, a match

for white ones. A serpent teaches right from wrong.

Heartfelt confessions go horribly wrong.

They wonder what the Almighty proposes,

creating such a blasphemous match

made in heaven and hell. Their cottage

awaits. But it’s not yet time. An angel is bathed

in sorrow, missing candlelit dinners,

amber eyes that devoured him for dinner,

a sardonic voice teasing him for wrong

vernacular. For millennia they’ve bathed

in each other’s auras. His demon’s proposed

escaping to safe haven, maybe a cottage

in the star system whose name matches

theirs, A and C. But heaven’s ignited a match.

The angel knows they’ll be eaten for dinner,

live, by overseers who’ll set fire to their cottage

dreams, who’ll never stop berating wrong, wrong, wrong.

The angel says yes but to heaven’s proposal,

The demon warns of impending bloodbath.

So now we wait for months, for years, bathed

in breathless anticipation. We’re match-

less in number of stories told, theories proposed,

worlds built where angels and demons dine

in bliss, engage in mischievous wrongs,

move books and plants into their cottage.

We dream of the double proposal at dinner,

of baths that heal the hurts and wrongs,

of matching souls safe, at last, in their cottage.

*

Scribbling Vaguely Downwards Valentine’s Day prompts: dinner, date gone wrong, bubble bath, matchymatchy, double proposal, South Downs cottage

A sestina is a poem with six stanzas of six lines each and a concluding triplet. The stanzas have the same six words at the line ends in a fixed pattern and the six words all appear in the final three lines.

My Good Omens Valentine’s Day poems: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3978853

[ecc-poetry]

TERF WARS

I wrote JK Rowling a letter when I was a little girl, asking to play Hermione in the Harry Potter movie. The nerdy witch. Justice-monger. Shame and self-doubt had started to snake their way through me, but weren't yet my veins. It was safe then to beg boons of St. Joanne. Mother Christmas. "Miracle" wasn't a slur–hadn't she taught us to be plucked from obscurity? Hadn't she made magic real?

Unplucked, I hit high school, where despite owls and broomsticks, the reality was that I wasn't the right kind of girl: Awkward. Too smart. Too angry. My body clung to me like a slur, meanwhile Joanne SPEWed her punchlines: A witch who believes in sharing power?! I had no power. I only felt safe while shrinking. I shed baby fat like the skin of a snake,

and couldn't think who taught me the trick. My mind writhed like a snake. Hermione got a makeover to ready her for love, her worth made real. Joanne said: at my age, she could've been conned to seek a safety only gettable in the body of a boy. Not me. I was indelible. I'd die of girl before I stopped being one, like the girls who were told which they were and rebelled. Like the boys Joanne slurs

as lost girls. Joanne's three-quarter prose drowned Hermione in a slurry of girlboss: memory-muddler. Perfect prime minister. A snake licked my ears since 11, and now in the base of my brainstem, a witch peddles poisons. Joanne says the things in your head aren't real just because you know them. She says struggling. That girls are at risk of erasure, because it's un-safe–

and worse, unpopular–to be one. St. Joanne wants a safe world for women, so she causes with people who think I'm a slur. She says, "The system, surgery, easy fix, poor girls who do not conform." She parcels her tongue, snakelike, each poison pill small and swallowable. She knows 'real' lies between my legs. She thinks she is only burning witches;

but her cruelties sear me too. Don't you get it? Hurt one witch and her sisters scream. Joanne says protect, but I've never felt safe in her sanctum. I keep smelling flames. I run to my real coven, my story-slurred sisters. Joanne says that bigot's a slur, but to her it's a badge. It admits her to the parliament of snakes. All in the name of protecting 'real' girls–

Well, spare me your cherishing. My witch-womb rejects you. I pronounce your sanctimony slurred,

your safe, a stake to the heart. You think we're the same, but Joanne: I don't caucus with snakes. You made magic

once, but what you call love isn't real. It's a nuclear bomb, shedding ash through the years onto all us wicked girls.

-Elisa Chavez

(Notes and recs)

[eeriemilyworlds]

[lovesdisrepute]

sestina 01

his starlight reminisces a foreign skyline buoyed by salination: seaside boy glances up from a computer and the library windows are dark now, it’s too late for a boy of your age to fall out of words sink beneath midnight canopies, to  fade into azure, too early to  learn something new – fear the foreign! isn’t it true the sooner wretched ships sink  the more glass there is for you to pocket by seaside weeping bells in the stagnance, your mother for  your locked doors of the library  you are His, not this library  no books, shelved spines cracking to  attention, ink pressing forward an aria for a dictionary, translation: the foreign  act of admitting there’s life past our seaside there’s more to the world than toy ships in our sink  and you, do you sink? you, boy of the library  with shells in your marrow from her seaside life lived of knowledge, what is it to  dream? is joy such a raw foreign  thing spoken in darkness entombed for  overused ecstasy, melancholic for  melodrama, boy it’s easy to sink into spaces frightened and foreign  run now! you can escape this library  clear your mind of all He attends to  draw stick-shapes in sand at the seaside crack your nails into chipped rocks of seaside  whispers, easily it’s lost, for  your carrion fields are closer to  bile diluted in a public restroom sink  blink and he’s back, blue-lit in the library  how does familiarity manage to be foreign  little deaths by the seaside, blow a candle ‘til i sink  come forth for getting this library  boyhood: a lapse to become, unto himself, foreign

[isawhitney]

Anti-sestina

In essence, a sestina is an act of constant motion.

What sort of motion? Well, you stay

in the same place, repeating every word

six times [and then again, one other time]

at the end of your lines. Definite.

Of course, it's difficult to be so definite. Poets

always try and cheat a little. Staying the same

gets monotonous, so their words break

off or add on jarringly to the motion. Duck.

Enjambment. Clothes-horse. In time, the

reader loses their wits. Words, wisdoms, blur

a little, muddied in that staid mellow rhythm

that means nothing. Staying still, they wonder:

Am I in a time loop? All meaning disintegrates,

Lost in the definite whirlpool, moving on.

[apathyislikeawoundedsoul]

Ever Companionless

They call me Kind as Summer

With the wisdom of one with grayed hair,

The strength and beauty of starry space.

They think of me as a gentle season,

A flowered garden

Bathed in sunlight of gold.

But the tempermant of gold

Is one of summer,

So kind to gardens

For a moment, just a hair's

Breadth before it burns. Everyone has their seasons.

For my life, I've been kind for a beat of space.

That is to say, even a Lord will need space.

Most see their memories bathed in gold,

A nostalgic season,

Warm as Summer.

My nostalgia is lackluster with grayed hair

In a sad, brown garden.

How to care for a garden

That's been left in a lonesome space?

So I cared for others, brushed back their hair,

Made them shine like gold

Companionless, until the Summer

That became my happiest season.

She stayed for many a season,

Planted a garden,

Made every day Summer,

Brightened and warmed the whole space,

Shimmering like gold

With silver-shined hair.

"Silver Lady," They called her, for her hair.

But she tempered my season

And to me she was made of the kindest gold.

Young green and gold was her garden,

Bathing my gray and silver space

Once again in a kind Summer.

But even Summer has its seasons and she was taken from us, tormented in a dark space and with the apathy of her wounded soul, there was no joy left for her garden. Red tarnished green, and so my golden woman entered myth. Far away, she heals and waits, until the hours run dry.

I will see my silver lady again.

I challenged myself to write a sestina for Elrond and Celebrian! @runawaymun ty for letting me run a draft by you ♥️ it took me a while to decide I liked enough to actually post it 😂

[eliotrosechild]

Pigeon Pomp

The park and bus platforms are, at midday, same

as a walk by the seaboard rushed with breeze,

or the cranny grandstands hours after a game.

There, where hunger begets the fever for seed,

you find my head, sullen, with social ease,

chomping, stomping, pigeon pomping through need.

Man asks Pigeon: How does pomping suit your need?

Pigeon tells Man: Suits are pompous, needs are same.

You and we, bound by blood, cloaked with disease,

envy and pride, form graceless chords to the breeze,

mar the tokens of Regality’s seed,

and rake life’s contract with our pompous game.

By our sails, we are greatness in sport, a game

we love and hate. We fly and fie by need.

We take by want. We rape to spread our seed.

Dear murderous man, our pomp suits you the same.

Yet we are innocent when we yield to the breeze,

Juxtaposed, fat bellies of crumb fed ease.

If these pigeon thoughts offend your Gentle ease,

perhaps you ignore the pomp of man’s game,

where pride, envy and other chords hang the breeze:

man wakes to tame the day, anticipates need

and takes without remorse or shame. This same

taking is as common to hand as beak to seed.

We come to the ripe ground to eat the seed

en masse. Tireless at work, but sporting an ease,

in Congress we hoot, peck, hoot. While sesame

slips from our tongues, we’re coy to rethink this game—

“Could life, without competing, unscratch our need?”—

but the words taste dry as cotton-curled breeze.

Will we forever fly in a waking breeze?

Will we yield to the best the ripest seed?

Are we damned to hoot and peck the pomp of need?

An unsettled beak and neck finds no ease

competing in an uncompleting game:

these pompous virtues make man and pigeon, same.

At ease, my sweet, fat, pigeon man, you need

the man-bird to study its game and learn, same

as I, how pompous seed breeds a foul breeze.

[spacefin]

ANIMALS IN LITTLE BOXES

Mornings I wake, leave the cat sleeping, carry outside the burden of worry, vomit it out, don't spoil my enclosure. How do the birds know? They have a feeling. A feeling of winter. Time to depart; as the great curve of the earth they encircle.

Time is not flat. But yes, it's a circle. Call it a sphere, much like the cat sleeping. Hills of the blanket he presses apart. Eyes closed he rests; no sign of worry. Where does he get such lightness of feeling? Doesn't he know about the enclosure?

Winter in Prague. The tiger enclosure. Empty stone seats arranged in a circle. No care from keepers; no sign of feeling. Everyone ever is somewhere else, sleeping. At the glass wall the tiger's paws worry, As though that barrier might come apart,

loosen us both from the stonework compart. Houses or "homes", they are cages, enclosures, vessels. Within, we brew and we worry. The tiger is pacing (of course) in a circle. Pacing is endless - I walk when I'm sleeping. Restive while resting, anxious, unfeeling.

We face through the glass. I have a feeling. Knowing of something to which we're both part. The animal cry, inside, unsleeping, seeking out freedom, or at least closure; only succeeds in a tail-chasing circle. Behind the eyes we all share the worry.

Summer in Melbourne loosens the worry. I hope for him it's a bearable feeling. Swinging the sisal around in a circle. Keep him from birds that would be torn apart. Picking him up - in my arms, the enclosure. Later there's dinner. Together we're sleeping.

All birds and worry will one day depart. All feeling leaving the opened enclosure. Waking, sleeping; the sun's endless circle.

[home-of-the-fly]

The Harbor

Clang! Clang! The farrier's handiwork pounds the ground,

Each hoofbeat shattering air and crushing leaves.

My breath forms ghosts that shiver in the cold

And I watch as each succumbs and is lost.

Slam! My boot heel commands a charge.

Nightfall is come, and I am far from the Harbor.

Oh, woe be unto the man ignorant of the Harbor!

The Holy God surely smiles upon that hallowed ground.

Yes, Holy God, to be embraced as your charge!

How joyous a sight when a martyr leaves;

Cast from the dock into your arms and lost.

Lost only to us, the men that remain in the cold.

Mercy! Mercy! I yearn to be free of the cold!

I have begun to fear I may never see the Harbor,

Never feel its warmth as I'm reunited with what I've lost.

Hurry, damn you! I hear the undertaker breaking ground!

Oh, Holy God! I beg thee be merciful to the leaves,

The leaves that scream and bleed under my charge.

Your honour, your Holiness, I am innocent of your charge.

I swear on my faith that in my heart I am not cold,

Nor unfeeling, for I wept as I crushed the leaves!

Each stride broke my heart, but I had to reach the Harbor.

Have to still! You seek to detain me, but on what ground?

You heathens! Release me at once, for you have lost!

Faster! Faster! May you be swift; hope is not yet lost!

If boot and spur be insufficient, let my words charge:

My loyal steed, your heart must soar above the ground!

Think only of warmth, as death follows thoughts of cold.

Look! See the light through the branches and behold the Harbor!

Faster! Faster! The light will soon drown the sounds of leaves!

Praise be! Such beauty, such glory! Damned is the man who leaves,

And damned is he who dares forsake this eden of the lost!

And lo! The trees are naked of leaves in the Holy God's Harbor.

Yet their memory leaves red stains on my love, my muse, my charge.

I walk the scarlet streets, yet still shiver with cold,

And soon see why: frigid waves crash upon the Harbor's ground!

Of course! The Holy God was never the martyrs' charge!

Nor was it the lost or the leaves; the martyrs worship the cold!

And so, as I weep, my tears flood the Harbor, washing clean the bloodsoaked ground.

[betweenthetimeandsound]

--prompt from @nosebleedclub "crows and ravens" (1 October)

Crows and ravens take flight in overcast skies, unwary of the leaves following them, colored with gold. Unraveling threads accompany a violent wind, which whip the innocent into submitting into time's embrace, with scarred cheeks and flying hair.

Charmed and beautiful, I revel in my curly hair, covering my eyes and grazing my soft cheeks. But when I wander outside, a mourning wind conquers a zephyr and leaves it yearning, submitting to the quickly disintegrating autumn skies, only a trickle of sunlight gives out some gold.

I bartered your soul for maidens' hearts of gold; they glimmer in the dusky skies; with time, only sodium lamps are submitting to the ugliness of day, shining on tangled hair. Contemplating on the ruddiness of your cheeks, I hold myself and wait for the wind.

Out on the sidewalk, I face the wind, but it only accepts those who are submitting to the falling odds, with open palms and falling hair. I remember when you gave kisses on my frozen cheeks, and then lit a candle to bring some gold to the silvery overcast skies.

When will I wake up to pure, turquoise skies, and have only delicate rays caress my cheeks? I hide myself, making a veil out of my hair, and only offering a hand out for gold. Accepting your loss is submitting to a last gust of hurricane-like wind...

..which throws me off balance, a bastard wind. The soul would know better not to trust the skies; to accept the constellations as they are is submitting to a fate so wretched, it could even tarnish gold. You would recognize me by my raggard hair, but the crows and ravens cannot kiss my cheeks;

instead, they arrive and peck at your cheeks, relishing the fleshy and raw gold which is only revealed in the winter skies. --Elda Mengisto

[goodvibesatpeace]

Body Positivity

In a world obsessed with physical perfection,

We're bombarded with unattainable ideals,

But it's time for a new kind of reflection,

One that embraces all shapes, sizes, and feels.

Body positivity is the call,

A movement to accept and love us all.

No longer should we hide or be ashamed,

Of the curves, lines, and angles we possess,

For our bodies are unique and untamed,

And it's time to embrace, not suppress.

The media may try to define beauty,

But it's time to reclaim our autonomy.

The road to self-love may be complex,

But we're on this journey together,

With every step, we learn to flex,

Our confidence and self-love forever.

It's not about what the scale may say,

It's about embracing who we are today.

It's time to shed the negative thoughts,

And replace them with words of empowerment,

For every body is a work of art,

And it's time to give ourselves that acknowledgment.

We are more than just our outward appearance,

Our worth lies within, not in adherence.

The sestina of body positivity,

Echoes through every inch of our being,

For it's not just about superficiality,

But rather, accepting and freeing.

Our bodies from the chains of society,

And learning to love our unique identity.

It's time to redefine what beauty means,

It's not just about fitting into a size,

But about loving ourselves in all our scenes,

And seeing the beauty in all our highs.

Our bodies are our vessels to thrive,

And it's time to embrace and to revive.

So let's embrace our scars, stretch marks, and all,

For they tell a story of our journey,

Our bodies, big, small, short, or tall,

Each one a masterpiece of diversity.

We are more than the sum of our parts,

Let's celebrate our bodies and our hearts.

This sestina may come to an end,

But the message of body positivity,

Will continue to spread and transcend,

For in every body, there is beauty.

So let's uplift one another,

And embrace the beauty in every body, brother and sister.

[hitawall]

Two Sides, Three Angles

The almost maiden hopes to forget

The angst she feels about the lack of coin.

Her dreams go up in smoke,

Fading tendrils of half truths and lies,

Even as she tries to count her blessings,

Pinning them down in a blushing notebook.

The steady lines of the notebook

Allow the almost maiden to forget

How she brought about those blessings

To the partner so unconcerned with coin.

Now that timeless lover holds her lies.

Where there is fire, there is smoke.

Catching in her throat like wildfire smoke,

All that naivety penned into her notebook

Is free from any half truths or lies.

The insatiable lover wishes to forget.

He turns his attention to his coin.

He struggles to remember his many blessings.

Known to him is the fickle nature of life’s blessings

Together with the dangers foretold in smoke.

He wishes enough could come of coin

To right the wrongs written in her notebook,

To give her what she needs to forget,

Even if he had to feed her lies.

Two sides of the same coin, they cling to lies.

To count someone among your blessings,

You must be prepared to never forget,

Even when their hopes vanish in smoke,

Even when they cry only into a notebook,

Even when they’ve spent up all the coin.

The importance of coin

Cannot be diminished by lies,

And so plans fill the notebook

For how to bring back blessings

That have nearly smoldered into smoke.

Such a partner refuses to forget.

The little blushing notebook binds the blessings.

The almost maiden overlooks the coin and the lies.

She chooses to take in the smoke to forget.