Day 4: Blues poem Sestina
Today's prompt was to write a blues poem. After spending about 10 minutes attempting it, bashing my head against the proverbial wall, I did what I often do when faced with something I don't really feel like doing... I decided it was stupid and quit. Instead, I chose to write a sestina. For those unfamiliar with this poetry form, a sestina has 39 lines and a distinct pattern wherein the last word of each of the first six lines is repeated at the end of the lines in each of the following 5 stanzas. In addition the 7th stanza, which is only three lines, must contain all 6 words. Three must go at the very end and the other three allocated one per line and placed wherever it fits. I got many conflicting answers as to the rules on this last stanza, so I made it up.
Today's prompt was to write a blues poem. After spending about 10 minutes attempting it, bashing my head against the proverbial wall, I did what I often do when faced with something I don't really feel like doing... I decided it was stupid and quit. Instead, I chose to write a sestina. For those unfamiliar with this poetry form, a sestina has 39 lines and a distinct pattern wherein the last word of each of the first six lines is repeated at the end of the lines in each of the following 5 stanzas. In addition the 7th stanza, which is only three lines, must contain all 6 words. Three must go at the very end and the other three allocated one per line and placed wherever it fits. I got many conflicting answers as to the rules on this last stanza, so I made it up.
I chose to be a bit tongue-in-cheek with this one... I deliberately chose six words which are often used in love poems and the like, to write an overly melodramatic piece which was mostly about loss/hate, on a topic that is mostly ridiculous. The piece is not particularly good, but the juxtapositions tickle me somewhat, and so it stands as my submission for day 4.
A sestina in mourning of my first boyfriend, who was lost to World of Warcraft.
I often close my eyes and imagine your face.
Not in the affectionate way of a friend or a lover,
but in the manner of cartoons in the early morning,
where an explosion destroys your skull from within,
leaving your neck a great smoking hole.
It is an activity I undertake with great pleasure.
I shiver to imagine what might bring you pleasure.
The red handprint of a blow struck to a lady’s face,
or perhaps ensnaring an infant in some deep, dark hole?
or perhaps ensnaring an infant in some deep, dark hole?
Surely you have never known the passion of a lover,
looking into their eyes and finding a blaze within.
Of all the ways to start a day, that would not be your morning.
You know, it is the way I used to start every morning.
Every awakening was softened by the pleasure
that I took upon examining my bed to find him within.
After four years, I still thrilled to examine his face,
to find in every contour and crease the familiarity of a lover,
allowing the easy expanse of it to swallow me whole.
Through your machinations, I now find myself less than whole.
You delighted at the prospect of forcing me into mourning,
your mind fixed on a way to ensnare my precious lover,
introducing him to your twisted, mechanical pleasure.
I remember the day I saw a hint of it in his chiseled face,
the day I first caught a glimpse of the draconic beast within.
When you first placed that fertile and malicious seed within,
it carefully wove blackened roots through the whole.
Eventually he wore an blank mask in place of his face.
He would be drowning in you when I woke in the morning,
his body clenched in anticipation of your sickly pleasure.
He was courting you the way he had courted me, his lover.
And now you, most demanding of partners, are his lover.
If I were to look inside his heart now, I would find you within.
Your desire, your every whim, is now how he seeks pleasure,
leaving, in place of the warmth he had, a cold and rocky hole.
We are worlds apart now, when my alarm chimes in the morning,
and I doubt I will ever again find myself in his weary face.
I would face you, finally bursting with the rage I have within;
to awaken one morning and pry from your claws the soul of my lover,
but I cannot save him from your pleasures, for you are a bottomless hole.
