Sestina Challenge

[Angeline]

there once was a gal from Nantucket...

diet coke spew.

 

[Guest]

fly taught you the expression "bust a cap in your ass"? and i called that guy a gentleman (i'm sure i did at some point...maybe).

i think you would write a brilliant sextina.

and where's PoeTess? She writes brilliant everythings.

fly's a bad influence on every one - you should see the things he's got me doing!

Oh - and leave me outta this one, Ange.

 

[Remec]

Sestina: Can someone just give me the first line and I'll go from there.

Sure...let's see...

Flowing blonde hair hung loose about her face,

That work for you?

 

[WickedEve]

I had to ask for a free line.

Ange, the chicken stands (or sits) for dignity.

 

[WickedEve]

Sure...let's see...

Flowing blonde hair hung loose about her face,

That work for you?

That's much better than what the others offered.

 

[WickedEve]

I have the first 3 lines of my sextina:

There once was a gal from Nantucket,
flowing blonde hair hung loose about her face.
She lived dangerously through a vicarious dildo.

 

[Angeline]

fly's a bad influence on every one - you should see the things he's got me doing!

Oh - and leave me outta this one, Ange.

i wasn't prepared to try very hard, my friend.

 

[Angeline]

I had to ask for a free line.

Ange, the chicken stands (or sits) for dignity.

only here could a chicken with a beer can up its butt stand for dignity.

 

[Tathagata]

I have the first 3 lines of my sextina:

There once was a gal from Nantucket,
flowing blonde hair hung loose about her face.
She lived dangerously through a vicarious dildo.

looks like a porno script

 

[Guest]

i wasn't prepared to try very hard, my friend.

That's why I you so.

 

[Angeline]

That's why I you so.

well, you're kind of in the same category as ee. if he wants, he'll come in here and just write whatever he feels like and be on his merry way. it's like a force of nature...

 

[The_Fool]

Done, now leave me alone.....



Modest motion claims his eyes
Discreetly dressed to draw attention
Fingers trail up stocking thighs
Pointed toe accentuates velvet curves
An enigmatic smile and translucent silk
Disguise all scent of her intent

His mind flows headless of any intent
She’s captured him with smoldering eyes
His fingers long to touch soft as silk
And share his complete attention
With lingering licks on sultry curves
His hands, clenched, press against his thighs

The simple nightgown reaches to her thighs
She lifts it slightly with full intent
To offer view of more than translucent curves
But only offer hints for his heated eyes
She wants his full attention
Focused on what she’s wrapped in silk

The smooth feel of silk
No match for smoothness of her thighs
Offered for his attention
Offered with every intent
To uncover for his eyes
A sensual feast of curves

His thoughts travel roads with dangerous curves
As she dances dressed in silk
Silent for the moment, speaking only with eyes
Her fingers trail down his thighs
Showing that her only intent
Is to capture his full attention

And she has ever bit of his attention
With lips focused on her curves
To devour her is his intent
Upon his knees, he slowly slides up the silk
Pressing his lips between her thighs
As she slowly closes her eyes



My only intent is to offer my full attention
Let me feast my eyes upon your dangerous curves
Let my fingertips think of silk as they travel your thighs

 

[Guest]

Done, now leave me alone.....



Modest motion claims his eyes
Discreetly dressed to draw attention
Fingers trail up stocking thighs
Pointed toe accentuates velvet curves
An enigmatic smile and translucent silk
Disguise all scent of her intent

His mind flows headless of any intent
She’s captured him with smoldering eyes
His fingers long to touch soft as silk
And share his complete attention
With lingering licks on sultry curves
His hands, clenched, press against his thighs

The simple nightgown reaches to her thighs
She lifts it slightly with full intent
To offer view of more than translucent curves
But only offer hints for his heated eyes
She wants his full attention
Focused on what she’s wrapped in silk

The smooth feel of silk
No match for smoothness of her thighs
Offered for his attention
Offered with every intent
To uncover for his eyes
A sensual feast of curves

His thoughts travel roads with dangerous curves
As she dances dressed in silk
Silent for the moment, speaking only with eyes
Her fingers trail down his thighs
Showing that her only intent
Is to capture his full attention

And she has ever bit of his attention
With lips focused on her curves
To devour her is his intent
Upon his knees, he slowly slides up the silk
Pressing his lips between her thighs
As she slowly closes her eyes



My only intent is to offer my full attention
Let me feast my eyes upon your dangerous curves
Let my fingertips think of silk as they travel your thighs

I hate you!


*really goes to eat worms.*

 

[The_Fool]

I hate you!


*really goes to eat worms.*

You don't either.......

 

[Remec]

Is it just me or does it always have to sort of hang up in the fourth or fifth stanza?
<grousing>
<sighing>
<slipping off to try to finish preliminary version>

 

[Guest]

You don't either.......

OK - I don't really what's more - I love that poem. (mumbled grudgingly through gritted teeth)

 

[The_Fool]

OK - I don't really what's more - I love that poem. (mumbled grudgingly through gritted teeth)

Thanks, sweets. It needs work, but I just tossed it off to piss off Ange.....

 

[PatCarrington]

you're gonna have to light the fire or i ain't movin'.

 

[Sins666]

And I thought highschool and college poetry assignments where mind numbing thats just mind blowing.

Them 12th century people were loco thats for sure, and they weren't then this made them loco.

 

[Maria2394]

The sestina is a traditional form of poetry dating back to twelfth-century France. It is considered one of the most complex (and therefore difficult) forms to write. Personally, I don't find it so much "hard" as really time-consuming.

In a traditional Sestina:


The lines are grouped into six sestets and a concluding tercet. Thus a Sestina has 39 lines.

Lines may be of any length. Their length is usually consistent in a single poem.

The six words that end each of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in a different order at the end of lines in each of the subsequent five stanzas.
The repeated words are unrhymed.

The first line of each sestet after the first ends with the same word as the one that ended the last line of the sestet before it.

In the closing tercet, each of the six words are used, with one in the middle of each line and one at the end.

The pattern of word-repetition is as follows, where the words that end the lines of the first sestet are represented by the numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6:

1 2 3 4 5 6 ________End words of lines in first sestet.
6 1 5 2 4 3 ________End words of lines in second sestet.
3 6 4 1 2 5 ________End words of lines in third sestet.
5 3 2 6 1 4 ________End words of lines in fourth sestet.
4 5 1 3 6 2 ________End words of lines in fifth sestet.
2 4 6 5 3 1 ________End words of lines in sixth sestet.
(6 2) (1 4) (5 3) ____Middle and end words of lines in tercet.

Traditionally they were also written in iambic pentameter, which I tried once but it almost made my brain explode.

So. Want one of these before you give it a try?

Here's the first one I ever wrote.

Ocean Sesto

It's cold tonight at water's edge.
Beyond the horizon lies everything.
I've heard an ocean can carry blues
in waves catapulted by the wind
to whisper faith or sigh of loss,
echoed in whorls of hollow shells.

I've scanned shores for perfect shells,
sinistral curved with fluted edge
like porcelain treasures hiding loss,
beautifully bereft of everything,
but faintly singing like the wind
blows depths of boundless blues.

I've seen the world as seas of blues,
and brasses, woodwinds all as shells
that float their minor notes on wind,
and echo past a night's belled edge,
filling the heart with everything
that's fragile beauty tinged with loss.

A starless night embraces loss
as empty hearts fill up with blues,
denying naught but everything;
illusion overflowing shells
like Trompe l'Oeil tricks vision’s edge,
or breathless echoes ape the wind.

Perhaps distant shores blow wind
in constant faith construed as loss,
and traveled too far dull the edge
of understanding, blurred like blues
mute harmony and moan from shells
in rhythmic slurs, obscuring everything.

So sad songs seem like everything
on empty nights that sing with wind,
sighing through our echoing shells,
conducting symphonies of loss
or simply sounding wordless blues
that drown beyond illusion's edge.

Why do shells sing everything
the ocean's edge carries on wind?
Why must I love this loss, these blues?

The_Fool wrote at least one; so did some other folks here. Wanna give it a try?

oh angeline im trying. i have the first three sets in iamb, came back to double check the order. if i go crazy, itsall your fault

 

[Angeline]

oh angeline im trying. i have the first three sets in iamb, came back to double check the order. if i go crazy, itsall your fault

sweet sister, it doesn't have to be iambic. i tried that once and it was so hard, and still I didn't get it right. don't worry about the meter; speak your heart.


Seeker's Sesto
by Angeline ©

One window yields hard frost to spring in time,
like wells ring water in mirrors of hope
and warming rain breaks through a wintry clime,
passing remorse over a sunny slope.
The open glass bids peace to drift from skies,
settling dawn to melt my frozen sighs.

My years have passed in a melange of sighs.
I do not count the days nor keep the time,
but dream instead against the changing skies,
and set the world into a frame of hope,
not mindful of the way events can slope,
casting dreamers into a colder clime.

When heedless thoughts conjure a sun swept clime,
measuring faith against fractions of sighs,
my dreams of spring carpet a rocky slope,
ascending unaware of passing time,
focusing only on the future’s hope,
as if petals portended brighter skies.

Dreamers forgo the world for signs in skies,
challenging stars to yield a different clime
in constellations that bridge wish to hope,
as if the night might blanket all one’s sighs
like mother rocks her child through dark time
to quell the darkest soul from travail’s slope.

Like Yeats on seeing swans wing past Coole’s slope,
I know years arcing in avian skies,
and measure wing beats to the press of time,
advancing unperturbed by age’s clime,
whooshing the wind away in careworn sighs,
turning my face upward in faceless hope.

I counter pain thus through prisms of hope,
sliding past age on my life’s slipping slope
to recall trials with the barest sighs,
and pull my dreams down from the darkling skies,
searching the stars for comfort’s warmer clime,
passing in years of optimistic time.

Dreams sleep safely under hopeful skies,
petals open dispelling changing clime
in starry nights alighting paths of time.

 

[The_Fool]

I always feel like my sestinas are too wordy. Lines are too long.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, sweets. It needs work, but I just tossed it off to piss off Ange.....

...and that's supposed to make me feel better?





Tossed off, indeed!

 

[The_Fool]

...and that's supposed to make me feel better?





Tossed off, indeed!

She's ignoring me anyway... The key is to pick easy, bland words with multiple meanings. The hard part is to use easy words in different ways.

 

[The Poets]

bumping