Poetry Month - Conclusion

This being the last day of National Poetry month, I decided to do something special. I wrote a poem. And not just any poem, I wrote a Sestina.

Several years ago I participated in the PAD Challenge where I wrote a poem a day for the month of April according to prompts given by the PAD website. One of these prompts was to write a Sestina. I had never heard of a Sestina before and it made me wonder how many other forms were out there that I'd never heard of before. So then I spent the next couple of years exploring over a hundred different forms of poetry.

When I wrote my first Sestina, I thought it was the most heinous form in existence. It does not rhyme, but the last word of each of the first six lines are repeated in a specific pattern and you should try and keep the lines to the same syllable length. There are six verses of six lines each plus a three line envoi at the end that uses two of the key words per line.

Of course then I discovered the Coded Welsh forms and I realized the Sestina wasn't so bad after all. ;-)

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Black Dog

There is never a warning -
a whisper in the distance -
ashes falling from the sky;
like a priest of confusion
on a descent through madness,
he appears with no welcome.

He's rarely given welcome -
arriving without warning -
a life burning with madness,
a storm cloud in the distance
bringing only confusion -
shadows in a crystal sky.

Surrendering to the sky
some answers would be welcome.
A net cast in confusion
hits a wall without warning,
and always in the distance
dark feelings writ in madness.

A thought travels in madness,
shooting star in the night sky.
A life time's worth of distance
has never been so welcome,
when stars fall without warning
and lead you to confusion.

A lifetime of confusion,
like fuel igniting madness -
resolves into a warning
beneath a lowering sky
where reason would be welcome,
no matter what the distance.

His laughter in the distance
holds nothing of confusion.
Black dog you are not welcome.
You cast me down in madness,
lost in the evening sky,
your presence like a warning.

A cold welcome to madness
of distance and confusion -
the black dog sky a warning.



If you'd like to learn more about the Sestina, go HERE