#sestina poems on Hello Poetry

ANH Oct 2019

Just as there's light, there's darkness in everyone's life.
It's stark, shadowing sunlight, and doesn't yield.
Just how is anyone meant to jauntily thrive
in an ostentatious world meant to shield
Beading, beating eyes from those that suffer
from vicious, bleeding lies?

A pawn cannot decide where it lies
in the everchanging game of fate that is its life
being puppeteered by monsters who make their pieces suffer
from their callous thrones that do not yield.
For they always use an invisible shield
to ensure that they always thrive.

In such a world, how is it we are meant to thrive?
Sinking deeper and deeper in blatant lies
of the quixotic dreams of old to shield
the simple fact that we are taught to live a life
where we stand subservient and yield
the abuses of those in power who make us suffer.

For such a long time we were taught to suffer
through storming skies. Beaten, impossible to thrive.
Time can wither our ability to yield
the pain inflicted by those who tell noxious lies.
A sunken arrow into our psyche to devastate life
worth living and love that cannot hide though any shield.

What else other than our love do they want to shield?
Without, there is no cure for those who suffer
and carry on with the hardships of life.
We live in those pockets of light and thrive
in a different world where we banish the lies
that our worth is measured in what we yield.

Despite my pride, there are the times where I yield
to those shadows in the sky. Yet you shield
the rain and I can see where that crescent lies
above our heads. Cease what we suffer,
the moonlight sonata within tries to reach out and I thrive
from your touch of endless life.

I know it seems we're predetermined to suffer
But take my hand and we'll thrive
as I try to hold onto the fragments of this life.

I started this as an assignment two years ago. I finally finished.

#sestina #hope #hopelessness #love

Ron Conway Oct 2019

Slightly After Dark (a Sestina)

The landscape narrows to a sharpened point
In grasp of fall's lost memory of spring
Flowing reeds and grass of every kind
Muddy shore where lilies once did lie
Underwater snags I know so well
Aspen leaves afloat on reckless current

The sky alight it strikes a vicious current
Like mother nature's exclamation point
Startled, though the spirit knows **** well
The heart restarts as if upon a spring
Vivid hues confront the silent lie
Nature is not always good and kind

The night evokes dreams of a different kind
Triggering your demons past and current
You might not know just were the secrets lie
Don't waste your time in search; you'll miss the point
Take your water from the flowing spring
You'll never know which one's the poisoned well

In case you think that life is going well
Think why there are no other of your kind
You may never find eternal spring
Where gentle breezes blow in spiral current
A spider draws its net from point to point
In centre of another's death bed lie

We contemplate the stars 'low which we lie
So vast the distance yet still seen so well
Against pure darkness shines the smallest point
The universe becomes so coldly kind
Our souls an interruption in the current
So from our beating hearts will joy now spring

Ideas launch like from a coiled spring
They only serve to perpetrate the lie
You squander time and effort to be current
Now I see you've drunk from tainted well
The choice is not to be true or be kind
We could try to fix this thing but what's the point

when rage the current from the meagre spring
we reach the very point where promise lie
whenever all is well, we're paid in kind
rc

#sestina

Bruno Aug 2019

(I, me, they)

My birth certificate was written in the blood “she”
(I, me, they) would one day shed from the bleeding body
Given to me by who knows what (how does it bleed without being
Cut) because my ***** is not cognitive of what it is (nothing)
To me and my period is done to me you can’t know what it does
To me but it has nothing (nothing) to do with me

And I’ll never be able to speak of the violence it acts on me
To bleed (and bleed) and be called “she”
Because wars have been fought in my ***** (does
This mean I’m a war criminal) and I am all scars and all blood and my body
Is not a graveyard because a graveyard holds something but I hold nothing
I want to hold (nothing) for my period to stop being

Misgendered because “shesheshe” is not my being
“She” wants to be a prophecy but the violence of “she” slices me
The repetition of “she” of the tiny letter “F” in blood ink does (nothing)
Does battles on me (does violence) because the repetition of “she”
Is not enough to create a prophecy and words do not change my body
Believe me I have tried (I have tried) but nothing does

Because my body is vein-seeped concrete my body does
Everything I don’t want it to but somehow without being
My enemy because the wars fought in my ***** (on my body)
Were not fought by me and the violence of my body is not me
It is every ******* who has called me “she”
And the violence of my period compared to “she” is nothing

But my period wouldn’t be violent if it was labelled as nothing
If “she” wasn’t written in blood my period wouldn’t do what it does
(To me) but blood has no gender I have no gender “she”
Is not my *****’s gender because my ***** is an ***** being
Exactly what it’s supposed to be not “she” but me
(I, they) functioning as a reminder of the wars fought on my body

The concrete gravestones tumbled on my body
The victory celebration on my body where violence is nothing
Because “she” is nothing not concrete or a graveyard to me
So I will mishear “she” and I am free from what it does
From my birth certificate blood drenched burning “she”
Is gone my violence is gone I have brought myself (they, I) into being and

My body is not a graveyard it is a sanctuary “she”
Cannot enter nothing but my they-being
Can enter because I (me, they) know what it does

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#gender #sestina #personal #periods

clxrion Jul 2019

Equaliser

The jogger stops a while to catch his breath,
a sweaty grimace painted on his face.
Perhaps in half-light it appears a grin
to others - actually he feels like death.
With averageness as his only sin,
he thinks, how apt to go in such a place.

Her memory is blank beyond this place.
She draws a rasping, thin and ragged breath,
inhaling scents of forced carnal sin.
The caked make-up is falling off her face
but all her thoughts these nights have been of death;
a cigarette will reapply her grin.

The old man looks around and gives a grin
at all his children gathered in his place.
For months he has been waiting for his death,
his lungs to finally run out of breath.
The ghost of life still lingers on his face,
a long, benign existence free of sin.

Bejewelled silky hands still slick with sin
support, neck-like, a head which wears a grin
that looks like it's been stolen off the face
of mannequins and plastered into place.
Her role in hastening his final breath
still haunts her. So it shall unto her death.

This industry is headed towards death.
They think intelligence is just a sin
and try to cut him off at every breath.
He finally allows himself a grin.
With this he'll put them in their proper place
and wipe that smug expression from their face.

The kiss of malnutrition on her face,
a souvenir from those merengues with death,
lies testament to horrors in this place.
Though poverty may be a fatal sin,
she bears the burden with a toothless grin
and croons her lullaby under her breath.

Behold my face! They all know I am Death.
But truth is, there is sin in any place;
I'll grin the same before I stop your breath.

All are equal in death.

#sestina #iambic #pentameter

Brody Blue Jul 2019

Go the Whole Way Thru

There may come a time
When I go out of my mind,
Lest I see a light
From above shine thru,
And all renewed ‘neath the sun;
Then the sky may fall...

Summer’s turned to fall,
And soon will come winter-time,
A cloud covered sun
Robs wonder from mind;
Until the spring comes thru
Blessing us with light.

Though spring with its light
Will come, first will come the fall.
Go the whole way thru,
It soon will be time
To learn the limits of mind
Lies under the sun.

And under the sun
Is where you stand in the light;
So keep it in mind.
Summer’s turned to fall,
And soon will come winter-time.
Go the whole way thru.

Go the whole way thru;
Look toward tomorrow’s sun.
You will find no time
For the bright spot-light
When you wake up and it’s fall.
It will blow your mind.

If spring’s on your mind,
I’d advise, don’t think it thru.
First will come the fall;
A cloud covered sun
Will block out all of the light,
Then will come the time,

Your mind in the sun,
And shining thru it, the light.
But fall comes, this time.

This is a sestina made up of six pairs of haikus, and a single haiku at the envoi.

#haiku #sestina

Brody Blue Jul 2019

Mercy? Pay No Mind

Today is the day.
To yesterday, pay no mind.
Soon it will be night
When darkness rules things.
Whose corpse falls in the street, left
For buzzards to find?

Is it yours they'll find?
No. It won’t be yours to-day.
Leave for god what’s left.
Mercy? pay no mind.
You’ll find justice in the things
You will take to-night.

Soon it will be night
With a cloudy sky. You’ll find
Darkness will rule things,
Till the coming day.
To the sirens, pay no mind.
They have no song left.

Burn what they have left
To the ground. Light up the night.
Don’t pay any mind
To secrets they find.
They’ll be back at work some-day
Soon, and forget things.

And someday soon, things
Will be back like when we left.
Today’s not the day;
Soon it will be night.
At dawn, corpses they will find;
Mercy? pay no mind.

Mercy? pay no mind.
Go! Find justice in their things!
Take what you can find!
Burn what they have left
To the ground! Light up the night!
Till the coming day,

Pay no mind; what’s left
Are things to be had to-night,
Till the coming day!

This is a sestina made up of six pairs of haikus, and a single haiku at the envoi.

#haiku #sestina

Brody Blue Jul 2019

When I Met You, Love

When I met you, love,
On last April's fourteenth day,
While on that month long
Road trip, we got lost,
Found a bar, and went inside
With an empty hand.

I fulfilled my hand
That night, when I met you, love.
You snuck me inside
Your room night and day;
I must admit, I got lost.
But not for too long.

‘Cause the road is long
Ahead; and a bird in hand
Is worth two you’ve lost.
When I met you, love,
It was on the fourteenth day,
And you stayed inside.

And you stayed inside
For just way too ******* long.
Windows shut by day,
Lights at night in hand.
That night, when I met you, love,
Were you just as lost?

That night, we were lost;
At the bar we sat inside.
When I met you, love,
I still had a long
Way to go. But bird in hand
Was worth two that day

Till there comes the day
When I’ve found what isn’t lost,
That a bird in hand
Is worth two inside
The bush. It’s been so long since
When I met you, love,

That day spent inside.
I lost you; it took too long
For your hand in love.

This is a sestina made up of six pairs of haikus, and a single haiku at the envoi.

#haiku #sestina

Brody Blue Jul 2019

Blood in My Eyes

When I learned your love
Was now not mine for all time,
I disarmed my heart,
Because I thought life
Was what you saw with the eyes,
Not what you could feel.

Now, all I can feel
Is loathsome hatred, not love,
For my trickster eyes
That looked into time
Without seeing any life,
Neither soul nor heart.

And yet, still my heart
Beats on, till the day I feel
How swift is life,
And learn I need love.
I will beg of you this time,
With blood in my eyes,

With blood in my eyes.
Fragile is my lonesome heart;
Help me thru the time
So I learn to feel
Once more the fullness of love,
And how to live life.

For to have a life,
You owe the light of your eyes
And sweet breath. What's love
To a pale-green heart?
Not even worms does it feel,
Unimpressed with time,

Unexplained by time,
And knowing that dream called life;
How bad it did feel!
With blood in my eyes,
I beg you, take it to heart
That you have my love,

When in time, my eyes
See life in anothers' heart,
And it's me you love.

This is a sestina made up of six pairs of haikus, and a single haiku at the envoi.

#haiku #sestina

fallon Apr 2019

this one is about the same boy as all the others

a pity it is to watch the one you love
speak about her skin
to watch him play with her hair
hearing him speak about her lips
knowing she didn’t treasure him like gold
praying for her to release him, for him to be free

delicate as lace is his skin
his star sign is reflected by his hair
sweet as sugar are the words on his lips
he is more precious than gold
i know he prays for his spirit to be nothing but free
for him i am filled with nothing but love

that morning i played with his hair
and as he spoke i watched his lips
he sang to me with his voice of gold
that night with him i felt so free
i thought between us there was love
because that morning he traced my skin

and i thought he was watching my lips
i thought he was showing me the parts of him soft as gold
i was foolish to think loving him was free
his eyes seemed to reflect love
i thought i had him because of his blushing skin
or how he sighed when he smelled my hair

maybe he doesn’t see my heart of gold
maybe with me he doesn’t feel free
maybe he simply just isn’t in love
maybe it’s because i don’t have the softest skin
maybe the last time we connected was when i touched his hair
i’m sure he can never see himself kissing my lips

but with i’m i’ll always be free
something that will never fade is my love
i’ll never stop thinking about his skin
my favourite thing will always be his red hair
i’ll never stop thinking about that promise that came from his lips
i’ll always treasure him like gold

his lips, skin, hair
i’ll always remember like gold
but but my love for him will never be free.

#sestina #love #unrequited #sad #heartbreak

Eileen Black Jan 2019

Estelle

Estelle (Sestina)

I look out at the universe tonight,
High into a lonely dark sky;
Yet a single star stays shining bright,
Burning with an eternal flame.
An entire night sky, one twinkle of light;
I think she deserves a name.

Worthy of a star, is there such a name?
Not one I will find tonight.
I watch her glow until morning light
Till the sun takes over a blue sky.
Yet nothing could put out her flame;
She lives in my soul, eternally bright.

There is no other that can burn so bright.
I wish she could know my name.
In my amazement, jealousy burns like a flame.
She alone rules the sky tonight.
Will I ever rule a sky?
She seems to laugh, that twinkle of light.

Grant me this wish; be my guiding light.
Lead me to the passion to make my life bright,
A love that’s as deep as your endless sky.
That the world knows my name,
My only wish tonight;
Cast all other dreams to unending flame.

I will light a match and fan my dream’s flame,
Heart filled with hope till morning light,
The smile on her face I can feel tonight.
Oh dear star that shines down so bright,
Will you ever know my name?
Still she is silent in her moonlit sky.

How many wishes shall I place in the sky?
Will you silence me with a ball of flame?
Grant my wish: the world to know my name.
Please hear my words or I will have no light.
I can see you still shining bright.
My wishes are yours to answer tonight.

Estelle shall be the name of my twinkle of light,
Her flame burning always so bright.
I send one wish to the sky before I sleep tonight.

#sestina #estelle #star #universe #tonight #sky #bright #flame #light #name