Jack

(Inspiration^)

I wrote a Sestina today for an assignment, and I’m curious to hear what anyone thinks about it. I think it’s definitely heading in the right direction, although it’s not perfect. :) But I’d love any feedback you guys can give me! For example, I haven’t picked a title yet. Do you have a preference to any of the titles listed up top? (See poll)

The Sestina structure is very rigid and interesting, so I added the explanation of how it works at the bottom of this post. But long story short, the words at the ends of the lines repeat through the entire 39 lines of the poem, but they alternate and swap positions every time. It’s a fascinating form.

(So sorry if there are any errors—it’s my first draft and I wrote it in like 15 minutes ahah)

Sestina Structure explanation:

1 Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys,

2 Seeing at end of street the barren mountains,

3 Round corners coming suddenly on water,

4 Knowing them shipwrecked who were launched for islands,

5 We honour founders of these starving cities

6 Whose honour is the image of our sorrow,

Fate, my darling, could not withstand our love;

And because of this, I weep with the mourning dove.

Standing above the freshly turned earth

And wondering if my soul is worth

5. Enough to bring you back to me—

Oh, how comforting this idea could be.

But still, you lie beneath the ground,

Yet I feel as though I am the one who has drowned

In darkness, without you here—alive.

10. I keep thinking that you are about to arrive

From behind me—your hands around my waist,

As though the time you have simply misplaced.

Oh, darling, the box sits heavy in my coat

Of which I was to kneel and offer you—

15. I can feel the words like barbed wire ‘round my throat.

Instead of kneeling with the ring,

I kneel at your grave and hear the mourning dove sing.

By, me: @academic-vampire

Some notes:

(Notice how like 14 doesn’t have a matching rhyme. That is because the question—the offer—was never answered. There is no rhyme, and therefore no answer to the question of the proposal since their lover died).

Me: yeah, I don’t really care about the situation.

Them: have you written poetry about it?

Me: … well shit. You’re right.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

-A line from one of my poems, @academic-vampire

E. E. Cummings was an absolute menace

-A line from one of my poems, @academic-vampire

A slumber did my spirit seal;

I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;

She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

With rocks, and stones, and trees.

C'est un trou de verdure où chante une rivière

Accrochant follement aux herbes des haillons

D'argent ; où le soleil, de la montagne fière,

Luit; c'est un petit val qui mousse de rayons.

Un soldat jeune, bouche ouverte, tête nue,

Et la nuque baignant dans le frais cresson bleu,

Dort ; il est étendu dans l'herbe, sous la nue,

Pâle dans son lit vert où la lumière pleut.

Les pieds dans les glaïeuls, il dort.

Souriant comme

Sourirait un enfant malade, il fait un somme :

Nature, berce-le chaudement : il a froid.

Les parfums ne font pas frissonner sa narine ;

Il dort dans le soleil, la main sur sa poitrine

Tranquille. Il a deux trous rouges au côté droit.

Translation:

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This is just my main document of my poetry… not even my notes. Pretty neat. (I only started writing them 1.5 years ago)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

𝕴 𝖆𝖒 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖑𝖞 𝖋𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖆𝖘𝖎𝖟𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖒𝖊𝖑𝖑 𝖔𝖋 𝖆𝖚𝖙𝖚𝖒𝖓. ☕️🍁📚

The ocean reflects the pearl moon As the siren purrs her angelic tune.

She beckons you under the water— Take the hand of Poseidon’s daughter And melt into the glass sea; Allow the ocean to set you free— Free from death; free from pain; Free from life’s constant strain.

Let the water cradle your tired bones— Join her in the deepest unknowns.

-Poem by me! @xojack

You loved to look into my eyes

And compare them to the night skies.

But I realized, slowly, it wasn’t for connection.

It was merely to gaze at your own reflection.

short poem by me, @academic-vampire