sestina
Learn more about other poetry terms
You never seemed capable of such change,
never dreamed that you could have forgotten
all those hot summer days we once shared.
You told me how you wanted to cut
I often think of us as a time of day
early evening, late July
cherry trees swaying in golden hour light
I float home with you
every step a bit of music
Today I dyed my arm red
I drained myself of life
I sat under the stars
and took a gasping breath
Tomorrow I will wake
and repeat the same morning
I will never have the same morning
As I stand at this gateway
I think of heaven
In my head it is framed
As a world with no enemy
A world with a perfect God
A world colored gold by faith
Senior year was dimmed by the coming shadow of applying to college
Countless hours in coffee shops writing essays
The alternating waves of excitement and stress
It’s all about the money
I sat alone on my floor
My eyes glazed, my heart quiet
Watching the calm accumulation of my mess
Dirty laundry and outfits unworn, piling
I wish that I had never opened my eyes
Wishing to go back to the time where I was naive
To the time where I could not see the deceiver standing before me
Whispers drift with the salty breeze. Oh, my dear.
His tender hand brushes a lock of hair
behind her ear. Just, for me, bear
it a little longer. Let’s enjoy the fireworks at eight.
I don’t know if I will make it through this time.
I don’t want to endure this pain again.
In my heart is it wrong to reminisce?
Alone with myself sobbing back tears.
I have forgotten how it felt to smile.
Inside it is dark
There’s a monster in me
It is something I can not hide
The monster was created to shield
my fragile heart from pain.
Your shoulders held up with gilded rope.
Delicate, as if gliding on the wind.
My words slip, voice chokes and drowns,
and for an insignificant time, I’m lost
and strung out. The moment came and the moment
A product of love is a daughter.
Bury her in lies
So she can never achieve self love.
She's not the image they wanted her to be.
It's nearly punishing to fathom loving something you don't truly want.
"Listen to the forest. Breathe; this is home."
When I say this to myself, I am you.
I become Daddy's footprints.
My first steps were on top of feet
with fingers held in weathered hands
Springtime in the meadow,
Anavel weaves her silken dress.
She sings the songs of the swan,
basking in the welcoming heat of the day.
Into her torn shoes fell the rocks.
She let them crumble, let herself bleed.
Trudging towards her tryst with trees,
under battered broken branches she
Into her torn shoes fell the rocks.
She let them crumble, let herself bleed.
Trudging towards her tryst with trees,
under battered broken branches she
We dance, merry in a fortunate life
With lights flashing blue and green and red
Our only wish: that this will never end
A sentence without a terminal point
We are young. We are free in this great dance
Before my first breath, I attended class
Listening to voices and what they said
Words too complex for my understanding
Yet their inflections and tones stirred within
Little did I know, I’d find a career
His kind was not meant to dream—no, that gift
Was reserved for others. Not for him.
But he did dream—horribly vivid, raw
Dreams of blood and triumph and ichor.
Brush strokes over a canvas,
Waves, like roads,
Like branches on a tree.
An old car, papers balanced on the dash,
The weaving highway a snake,
Glints on the horizon of sunset-red.
Everyone remembers when they have experienced falling,
resolutely and strictly, for one whose laughter is music,
whose words are orders and whose touch is sweet.
Cold concrete brings ache to his body—unforgiving
Drops pour through a window onto his tired back
Yearning for freedom, he begs for the light of the moon,
Trapped in this nightmare, the pain will not fade.
Dad says to mom, I need a ride to the pharmacy
The car is too hot, maybe we should walk.
I’m left to watch my brothers and sisters discuss
teenage melancholy rumors and cigarettes.
Remembering the time
when I wanted to grow old
faster. Thought things were easy
as I’ve seen grown-ups do their way.
As my height increase inch-by-inch
The clothes I wear changes day by day
Preceeded not once by a warning sign, and prior experience forgotten, a crush
Is discovered when one spots The One and their heart abruptly pulls the brakes.
All of a sudden a sensation of falling,
We feel safest on the shore,
But no one is immune to the changing tides.
They advance and fall away in a rhythm relentless.
Not one can stand unaffected
With the world on her mind and hole in her chest, she is falling.
The weight she carries quickens her decent into the murky depths of confusion
Every thought, every action, has left her alone and lost.
what is there left to tell
anymore? I'm presenting my case to an empty room
filled with silence that illuminates my hurt.
Don't worry about it,
you're worthless to me now; you
Numerous giants stand straight and tall
While ignorant mortals to and fro run
The sun will soon hide its glorious light
From a city that is much too busy
Yet superficial stars will still glow
Body under blanket; sick in mind.
Coughing tears into a delicate tissue
as fragile as the aching heart,
that rests heavily between two collapsing lungs.
Filled with gasped air and racing blood,
This sestina is dedicated/inspired Joyce Carol Oates' short fiction Where Are You Going, Whe
The fragrant zest of pine assaults my nose
as I exit the dingy white van. Now, at last, I know
where I am again, the gleaming lake and lawless country road my limits,
The sand, the water, all so Beautiful
Recovered from a past of Ashes
Earthquakes, hurricanes, Drought,
Mother Earth filled with Rage,
Avenging the world of the Abusive
Humans; the corrupt, the reckless
Listening to the music,
While tears stream down my face;
Is just another day.
I tell myself that tomorrow will be better?
But I know the truth.
Nothing will change.
Who was I kidding?
My thoughts sprawl across the night,even with closed eyes.I wish I could pluck little memories,and throw them miles away.They dance playfully in and out of my mind,confusing what is real.
I step onto the balcony, focusing
on nothing but the shadowy night
sky, empty of stars I remember
gazing from the same spot with child’s
eyes, my father’s warm, strong hand
It crept and crawledand swirled arounduntil at last I felt its cold handsstruggling to pull me down, fighting for its life.It has finally taken over me.I finally gave in to the sin.
I sat and shivered hopelessly, I wore
The thinnest sheet of cotton blanket found
For a night my window stayed ajar, the pane
Coated with a film of dusty finish
Welcomed in a musty air that’s growing faint
Cold, green grass buried under bare feet,
Shivering, squirming to get loose, to be free,
Wiggling up between toes, afraid of being trapped.
Rasping against skin, embedded into the bones
Perfect white - clouds rolling like hills under
A sky pale blue like his eyes: sightless, remembering.
Staring through a glass oval, indented deep
You cannot make me be that one;
That one who will leave you to your
Thoughts – a penny for your thoughts?
Confide in me; rely on me.
Give to me your heavy heart;
On your shoulders, I see a world.
Daddy bear, eat your steel-
Cut oats. I know the crunch will stress
Your cracked jaw, but ain’t they so gold
In color? Before you go to the mine,
You’ll need your guns, so eat some, please. I’ll get Temple
a little girl runs around
far from feeling faintly exhausted
unsure of the time of day
she runs back home to check the time
no clock in sight, and enough light
an era left to play
They say "Don't follow others, just be yourself,
Originality is key; it's all up to you".
They also say "Don't be a freak,
Don't hog all the attention,
Not everyone can be the best",
So what can we do?
It’s smooth, curvy, and cold to the touch,
It’s an unimaginable feeling that escapes in an instant
Because one day it’s there, the next day—gone.
Only eagle eyes spot it;
Only the earth knows its hiding place.
The student prepares for college
Searching for a school with a perfect fit
The journey has already started
leaving his parents, the boy becomes a man
Click, click goes the mouse on the computer
Will.
It bends It creaks It pleads not to break.
You work You struggle You move.
Will.
Can’t see it Can’t touch it Can’t smell it.
You breath You laugh You shiver.
Will.
Now Hollywood wants to make you think they know what love is.
But I'm a tell you what true love is.
Love is not what you see in the movies.
Its not the ecstasy, its not what you see in that scene
Words flow quickly from her singing mouth,
as her hair was carried by a soft breeze.
“You think you own whatever land
you land on, the Earth is just a dead
thing you can claim.” As Englishmen
We watch the sky turn,
lustrous blue to slate black, hiding behind
jagged mountains, the bright, gleaming sun
now sleeps, closing its exhausted eyes.
The arise of the full glowing moon
The fire lit up the small room
And everyone looked with wide eyes
As it danced before them in the silence.
It enchanted its audience and made them
Forget. They looked at it and gave it their
“One step at a time,” she says to me.
“Just a few more steps and you’ll be free.”
As she speaks we draw closer to the roaring sea,
and I wonder what this woman could want me to see.
You might as well fuck
For virginity, if you war
On account of peace.
Life is full of irony.
Fraught from the plurality of man
Uniformity mistaken for marching to your own beat.
The old, faded wallpaper hangs on the walls
Ripped in spots where the cat has tested her claws
And where the wall meets the post of my bed.
Small birds peck at the breadcrumbs thrown into the yard,
My world is inconsistent.
All of us are far too absent-minded
to fix it, too indifferent
to care about any sort of intellectual
growth. We become strangely detached
and all we are left with is the cold.
From the day the boy and girl met
he promised her he’d love her
“till she was greeted by death.”
He prayed that day would never come
and only thought of it with horror.
And she loved him.
