Beneath the Skies

Down the street sings a harmony
“The ice-cream man!” cries Isabella
As she puts her dust colored child-
Like feet on her tricycle. A storm
Sits in the sky. It will run past
This town of streetlamps and quiet.

Years later, in-between all of the quiet
College library shelves, there lofts a harmony
Of wooden table carved graffiti past.
And there, reading, sits Isabella
A book about paradise, the mad ones, and storms
Before drifting away like a child.

Now older, she fears the child
That stands inside of her quite
Lovely forming life, a storm
Built to disrupt harmony.
And so sighs Isabella;
A song about everything past

Brings the images of the past
Which mirror-reflects as a small child
Who hears the cry of Isabella.
Through the urban quiet
A mother’s harmony
Calls her in from the storm.

When the girl enters, storms
Around the house, past
Her mother, the dis-harmony
Of a disappointed child
Breaks the broken-heart and quiet
Ears of Isabella.

Then walks Isabella
To break the tantrum storm
Of a girl, silent, quiet
Fuming, but mother walking past
Arms around her quells the child,
The only-ever-harmony.

Is a bell a harmony
A chime in the quiet of the past
A storm within a child?

 

 

 

Alright, sorry about my prolonged absence.  This class is taking up most of my time, and work is taking up the rest.  As I hinted earlier, this poem isn’t even a new one: I wrote it during the same time, and for the same college class, as most of my other form-ish poems.  It’s the last holdout, I think; at least, it’s the last publishable one.  And that’s because, until now, I really didn’t like it.

That’s my own fault.  I originally tried to make this poem a normal sestina, with all of the words repeating while also keeping all of the lines of similar length.  It’s like trying to write an essay underwater; it’s too much of a struggle with no real payoff.

So, I’ve spent the last day or so rewriting this to make it work.  I think I did okay.  It’s at least readable now.  I added a couple of book references as well, try to spot them (Google might help; they’re a bit obscure).  You know, that’s something I’ve always found hilarious.  In film, you aren’t supposed to heavily reference or show a better movie in your movie.  In poetry?  That’s just intertextuality!

Anyway, sestinas are difficult to write, and they confine you in too specific of a way for you to have any fun.  At least, that’s my experience with this poem.  I’d avoid using it unless you really like confining forms or you really want a challenge.

What else?  I’m halfway finished with this spanish course, so I’ll try to get content running at a smoother pace in the meantime.  After that, well… let’s just say that I have some plans for the next two and a half months.  That’s all!

On Sestinas

Sestinas are one of the most complex forms of poetry that are still considered “mainstream”.  I wrote one for college a while ago, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be involved with them.  Which is funny, because one of my biggest interests is in mathematics, and sestinas have been called poems which are perfect for the logical mind.

In essence, they are little jigsaw puzzles.  There is no real meter, no rhyme pattern that they must follow.  Each poem consists of 39 lines, which are 6 stanzas, each with six lines, and a tercet at the end.  This tercet is often called the envoi, and it kind of sums up the entire poem, more or less (but not always!).  The biggest required restriction is a series of six words, each of which are at the end of each line in a sestina and each of which must be rotated in a certain pattern for every other stanza.

For instance, from the first stanza with given end words of A B C D E F for the respective lines, the next stanza will have F A E B D C as the end words of the second lines, and so on, making the last word of the last line be the last word of the first line of the next stanza, and so on.  So the stanzas will go like this:

 

A B C D E F

F A E B D C

C F D A B E

E C B F A D

D E A C F B

B D F E C A

 

Then, the final tercet will have a pattern of BE DC FA.  Don’t ask me why, exactly, I have no idea.  This form is pretty complicated, as you naturally have to make the word fit multiple times in the poem.  So, it’s usually wise to have easily adaptable words end your lines, like age or love, stuff like that.  Like I said, I don’t have a lot of experience with this form, but the experience that I have had keeps me from wanting to do anything else with this form.  And for that catastrophe of a poem, stay tuned!