Hello PoetryVoting

Vote

Voting-Boards

Home

HomeFollowingInboxNotifications

Read

ReadLiftedFeedsHeartedHistoryMy poemsNew poem

Explore

ExploreOrbitsWordsTagsClassics
Log in
0
Stars
0
Embers
0
Alerts
0
Inbox

Vote

Voting-Boards

Home

HomeFollowingInboxNotifications

Read

ReadLiftedFeedsHeartedHistoryMy poemsNew poem

Explore

ExploreOrbitsWordsTagsClassics
Log in
0
Stars
0
Embers
0
Alerts
0
Inbox

As We Forgive Our Debtors ( A Sestina for Father in Heaven)

The city is shut, sparing its prey until tomorrow. Night rules, dreams creep down the street, eyes dead Her poised being is the center of universe, that girl She is loath to beg yet for the twenty fourth time of the night she sings out, God? It’s two in the morning and they are sitting at the balcony, God and her, both holding a cigarette Mother and father are in screaming colors but she is, only, the darkest blue Two of them are contradiction, a vexing rendezvous but they yearn for each other so once in a while they talk People talk A boy across the house is found dead Parents roaring, raging, crashing the ground, he’s wearing a pair of new basketball shoes. Blue. He is one of million, a delicate kind, very comely, a subtle presence. Neighbors murmur maybe God fell in love, maybe God enraptured by the boy. But God is peeking behind the closed door with the girl Between their fingers still a burning cigarette Maybe it’s the taste of Marlboro Red, the girl wishing an epiphany, a revelation, for its been too long, the girl and God writing each other’s eulogy. The girl has been dead for God and God has been dead for the girl, ruptured for a very long time, there’s no way back. No long talk can fix the burn of cigarette, the eternal crippling affliction taped up in every cavity inside the holy temple of their body A lady in the house with doors and windows painted blue is murdered. She was having a dalliance and neighbors talk behind their open bible. God cringes, God recoils, her god is a beige-tied, cigarette scented with hair slicked back. She was in his thrall, calls her name in a mesmerizingly fetching way making her girl again, an ingénue with a pair of chatoyant eyes. Bodies clashing, her muse, they fuse, he choose to ruse, dead, God is amused, time is lapsed, but perhaps she was not divine. A lady in someone’s car trunk, murdered, dear God! Inhaling. Conflating. Cigarette smoke all over the veins. A bright blue car parked across the street. A week since the boy died. A week since the lady went missing. People talk about somewhere this week another dead body is going to be found. Maybe in the park under the slide or on a high school bleacher, like the girl found God under her bed. The first encounter of God and the girl. God and the girl run out of cigarette counting the days God and the girl Next time won’t be cigarette and balcony. God and the girl next time at a bar with blue sign where sinners and saints sipping absinthe because God won’t talk to anyone but the girl. God and the girl sipping absinthe because the city is shut. Eyes dead.
Request permission to use this poem
Written by
steffi
Published
Mar 30, 2016
Lines·Words
58·477
Notes

it's really hard to see the sestina pattern, but the six words i use are dead, girl, god, cigarette, blue, and talk.

Tags
#poem#poetry#word#god#cigarette#spoken#spokenword#sestina#indonesia#blie
Permission

Request to use this poem

Tell steffi how you would like to use it. We review requests before forwarding them.

AboutBlogFAQPrivacyTermsContact
© 2009-2026 Hello Poetry/v27.0 by @eliotyork
Explore
Hello PoetryVoting
Write