Form Poem Contest

[alakungfu]

Sorry, Pendragon. Fixed the second half of the fourth stanza.

[qimissung]

I'm going to give it a try, but I don't really understand the pattern for the envoi.

[firefangled]

Time to harvest tears and the dead,
the unadorned soldier in discomfited ground,
no longer bound to ancient books.
Imagine from an ample bed he walks
into the fray where others can’t, and each shell
that fires and falls has no sound and finds no blood.

For destiny and gods, the earth is soaked with blood,
religion binds the living to the dead
words of saviors and prophets, a shell
in which an ocean forever lashes at the ground,
as in a child’s fervid ears listening as he walks
along the shore, a bucket and some books

on chambered relics like vestiges of books,
in that they no longer harbor flesh and blood,
nor anything that slouches, crawls or walks,
and though beautiful and pearly, they are dead,
subject to the tide and time, and ground
slowly into sand forever moving in the earth’s shell.

Listen in the open air, put down the shell.
Read the face of fear and close your books.
What noble passions march unseen over the ground
to silence guns and still the flow of blood?
Let them grow, let them come that once were dead.
No freedom rings, no morning dawns where battle walks.

In each soldier gone, a final wish escaped and walks—
that bombs and bullets generate no awe, each shell
that kills falls empty like the dead,
like mothers, who find no solace in their holy books,
children in whom the image fades that flows within their blood,
and time once more erases names above the ground.

Time to harvest all the soldiers’ spirits from the ground,
let their last appetence be the force that forward walks
and flows at last in every generation as one blood.
May there be no escape from peace, the world’s a shell
around us all, one creature, in someone’s pail, someone’s books.
There is no killing one, where all of us aren’t dead.

Rise morning and spill golden where the children walk!
Let the shells be heard in bells and cautions in the books.
Blood flows only in the living, gods no longer need the dead.

[alakungfu]

REVISED



Blunt House


Identify the stars that both
The restive and the wretched follow,
Brought to life in a dewy arena
Known to man as dreamland;
In resolution of the feminine,
The bane of torture of the man.

Stubborn beings derive from man,
Break their faith to pledges both,
Thrown lots with the feminine,
Posed in fair fields, then slowly follow,
Clutching vacuous freedoms in dreamland
Inspired of ether, a whimsical arena.

Who basks in attentions in the arena,
Distributes pleasures for a man
Biding his revelatory rift, in shifting dreamland,
Satisfying poles, countered, both.
Then halt the esoteric that follow
To arrive somewhere in the feminine.

No concept of the richly feminine
Inasmuch as rivets the male arena,
Leaving stars awash to embark and follow
Insight to such dried Experience as can man
Be imminent as destroyer of the sexes both.
Youth joins in with outstretched hand in dreamland:

To apportion the forming lives in dreamland;
To bind the material with the feminine,
And so the sea pulses, and the sky both
Jumbling in the likewise arena,
In the footsteps of retiring man,
Redolent with the long echoes that follow.

Heartwrenching, the afflicted follow,
Absent partners gripped in dreamland,
Living out the passions a man,
Balked by the giddily feminine,
Balances in the arena
And the enigmatic rival countered in both.

When victory adorns iin dreamland the feminine
From the superfluous company that follow in the arena
That plainly questions their motions, man and myth both.




The following is not a submission. It's what i did with the rest of the original poem.


Bluff House


Do what she can to reclaim her troth
In a vestal and a tragic solo.
Brought back to life as a snowy ballerina
Given to give away her hand
In abolition of the sanguine
In sections of fruits that, tried so, stripped, so can.

Relegated beings do what they can,
Drain their pleas then supplant their troth,
Toss in their losses with the sanguine,
Repose in their fields, surreptitiously solo,
Closing actual deeds in hand
Required of either, a ballerina

Or a stag, hind of ballerina,
Purposed to befriend as can,
Lifts lady's midriff, in one hand
Demanding payment in her troth
Else abandon in revised solo
The object of his smirk sanguine.

Skilled concept of the smugly sanguine
Inasmuch as inverts the ballerina,
Leaves tiny stars abashed to embark solo;
Appetite for such plied cadence as can
Be ambivalent as Recoiler of their troth.
Firm youth stands in with outstretched hand

Pictured lithe with flowing hand
To bind the mysterious with the sanguine,
And so the stage pulses, presenting the troth
Rumbling between the ballerina,
And the shadow, resolute as he can,
Resplendently etching each-to-the-other's mellowing solo.

Gutwrenching each inflicted solo
Staid response flipped in hand
Sufficing with the rhythms it can
Coerced by the gaudily sanguine
Relinquishing the ballerina
Of her symbiotic troth.

A fastidious shift nevertheless to hand so the troth
The master of the enticing solo ballerina
Stealthy student who can delve in the sanguine.

[AuntShecky]

What a labyrinthine maze the sestina is! Arranging the
permutations of a six-word pattern is like racking one's brain over a particularly difficult Sudoku puzzle! I read that
in 1878 Swinburne wrote a rhyming double sestina with12-line stanzas and a six-line envoi. No wonder the
man drank! Anyway, here's my entry:



"Ninja" Gal

In this world made for us we're made to work:
sowing and reaping, building and ripping up our world.
The economy is too refined in our crude and greedy time.
Minions in suits run things, ruin things. They move
invisible money around: Nothing useful,nothing done by hand.
They transfer funds, crunch spreadsheets, manage assets.

Me, I'm outside the margin: “No income, no job, no assets.”
What doesn't bring home bucks and bacon isn't work.
On paper, little value accrues by my own hand.
Sewing and cleaning, cooking and washing make up the world
from which I crave escape, but too confined to move.
It could be a virtual prison, as if I'm doing time.

Reality seeks respite in dreams, as one time
I imagined I made a film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Assets.
Of course, I was an “auteur.” I shouted “Action!” to move
the crew to block and grip, light and shoot my life’s work.
Naturally I was the star, the greatest in the world.
In every scene I directed myself and gave myself a hand.

I played a ninja, packing lethal power in my hand
while gracefully leaping into the air, in so-mo or frozen time.
“Impossible” you say, “in a gravity-strung world.”
Well, you can't blame a gal for capitalizing on her assets,
no matter how many critics say they don't work
or how my earth-bound feet and fate refuse to move.

Clad in black jammies, cat-like I could move,
with a scarf round my forehead, my serious hand
pointed perpendicular to the sky. Would that work?
Not every movie made is worth the effort and time;
some slice profits open, gutting assets.
The bottom line’s the top star in the world.

I'm just not cut out for show biz, or maybe any world.
Like going straight to video, I just can't move
up. I'm a “ninja”– no income, no job, no assets.
Now, don't go around thinking I exist hand-
to-mouth. I'll remember to check in from time
to time and write if I find work.

Among the assets hidden in the world,
rewards for work might someday move
into my empty hand. When’s Show Time?

[firefangled]

LOL! My sentiments exactly and I thanked God several times for the gift of wine while writing mine.

And might I add, that is an amazing sestina. I think the flow is as unforced as Elizabeth Bishops sestina about the grandmother and child.

Great job, Aunty!

[qimissung]

They were so awkward, in this mother daughter dance
One was the hard bright light of the noonday sun
And the wind and the lightening that formed the storm,
The other, the owl and the mouse on a midnight hunt, a dreamer
Who, book in hand, wondered and wandered
Through magic lands, a creature of the nightlit moon

She a raven who cawed fearful premonitions to the full moon
Who lured her love with her large dark eyes and a fearful dance
Who was born in one home, swore fealty to it, never wandered
Or wondered about the world, who left but came home to the sun
The daughter, fated to leave, to never come home, a dreamer
of dreams, yet dreamless, in the dreamtime, in the storm

Each loved the other with a fearful love, within a fearful storm
Each longed to touch, together, the silver rays of the moon
The mother never gave up on her wayward dreamer
And though she pined until she was shadow, she had the dance
She always danced with her lover, content together in the sun
While the other, fearful of the mirror that was her mother, wandered

And her mother, thoughts running this way and that, wandered
Into the land of “what if” and dwelt there long and long through storm,
Sunshine and shadow and wondered; and blinded, never saw the sun
The daughter, fearful of the storm, hid in the midnight moon,
Shut the door against the whirling dervish, and never learned to dance
Knew the contours of her midnight land, and there, a dreamer

Stayed; then one silver night a dreaming dance began, and the dreamer
Gave up the midnight land, and loved the sun and wandered
Nevermore; and the sun and the moon began a lovely dance,
Nevermore to be woebegone and caged within the storm;
Lovely, large, and luminous, she waxed and waned, but never moon
Did waver, she knew she loved the lion’s roar, knew she loved the sun

While setting, still glowing a lovely blushing rose, the sun
Still loved the moon with the passion of a dreamer
Knew she would make her way by the light of the fingernail moon;
Knew, with the fixed purpose of her heart, that she who wandered
Feared neither the importuning of her heart, the mirror, or the storm
But would stay awhile, and with her mother, dance

And so the dreamer stayed the storm
And happily wandered in her land of moon
To happily dance with her mother by the light of the midnight sun

[qimissung]

alakungfu, AuntShecky, firefangled, you have all done a magnificent, outstanding job. This was a tough one; I almost didn't make it, but I knew I had to try!

[alakungfu]

gimissung, after reading a poem like yours, you say to yourself (I do at least), "that's what I meant."" Lovely poem.

[qimissung]

Thank you, alakungfu!

[Pendragon]

Wow! I am astounded at the talent in these entries! Gonna be a very tough one to judge, let me tell you. Wonderful poetry, some of the best I have read in a coon's age!

[PrinceMyshkin]

They were so awkward, in this mother daughter dance
One was the hard bright light of the noonday sun
And the wind and the lightening that formed the storm,
The other, the owl and the mouse on a midnight hunt, a dreamer
Who, book in hand, wondered and wandered
Through magic lands, a creature of the nightlit moon

She a raven who cawed fearful premonitions to the full moon
Who lured her love with her large dark eyes and a fearful dance
Who was born in one home, swore fealty to it, never wandered
Or wondered about the world, who left but came home to the sun
The daughter, fated to leave, to never come home, a dreamer
of dreams, yet dreamless, in the dreamtime, in the storm

Each loved the other with a fearful love, within a fearful storm
Each longed to touch, together, the silver rays of the moon
The mother never gave up on her wayward dreamer
And though she pined until she was shadow, she had the dance
She always danced with her lover, content together in the sun
While the other, fearful of the mirror that was her mother, wandered

And her mother, thoughts running this way and that, wandered
Into the land of “what if” and dwelt there long and long through storm,
Sunshine and shadow and wondered; and blinded, never saw the sun
The daughter, fearful of the storm, hid in the midnight moon,
Shut the door against the whirling dervish, and never learned to dance
Knew the contours of her midnight land, and there, a dreamer

Stayed; then one silver night a dreaming dance began, and the dreamer
Gave up the midnight land, and loved the sun and wandered
Nevermore; and the sun and the moon began a lovely dance,
Nevermore to be woebegone and caged within the storm;
Lovely, large, and luminous, she waxed and waned, but never moon
Did waver, she knew she loved the lion’s roar, knew she loved the sun

While setting, still glowing a lovely blushing rose, the sun
Still loved the moon with the passion of a dreamer
Knew she would make her way by the light of the fingernail moon;
Knew, with the fixed purpose of her heart, that she who wandered
Feared neither the importuning of her heart, the mirror, or the storm
But would stay awhile, and with her mother, dance

And so the dreamer stayed the storm
And happily wandered in her land of moon
To happily dance with her mother by the light of the midnight sun

Thank God I didn't know when I first came across it thanks to Alakungfu that it was written according to the rules of the sestina or all the pleasure - the IMMENSE pleasure - I got from it might have been undermined by the whiplash of double-checking to see if qimmisung was following the rules! I still don't know if she was or not. What I do know and treasure is the feeling I got both times I read it that somehow each line was more full than the number of words or syllables in it might lead you to believe, that there was always more here than was being said.

Damn! this is GOOD! And seems to be as spontaneous as if it was following no rules!

[qimissung]

So true, Prince, so true!

But thank you, more than I can say.

[windblown]

With a sestina you go round in circles
The same end words again, again
Each repetition setting up new hurdles
You have to fill the given form with something new.
And so you come to think how in this pattern
You have to re-invent yourself from day to day.

Your Monday, Tuesday, Wednes- and Thurs- and Friday
Fill weeks and months and years in endless circles.
Your life a quilt - can you detect the pattern?
There, in that patch the girl-child cries again
And that old rag of habit: nothing new
You walk through life and find the same old hurdles.

You want to run - your path is blocked by hurdles
You shy away, the same as yesterday
You know that path and yet the hurdle's always new.
So tired are you from the ceaseless circles
You think you cannot face them once again.
You want to break out from the tiring pattern.

Just add a little variation to the pattern.
Perhaps you cn crawl under some big hurdles
And when another blocks your way again
You see how you can jump it one fine day
When you have gathered strength walking in circles
And suddenly your world looks almost new.

A single tone in your life's melody sounds new
And that fresh note reverses the old pattern
Where you just walked your feet now dance in circles
And playfully you lift surprisingly light hurdles
The tiredness you feel around the ending of that day
Feels good and sleep becomes refreshing once again.

You live, breathe deeper, even dance again
The greying quilt of life has colours that seem new
You find the strength to face the challenge of the day.
You can still recognize the well-known pattern
And no one has removed a single hurdle
But you see islands, Sundays in the circles.

And looking back again at your quilt's pattern
At old and new, smooth paths and giant hurdles
You add another day to life's sestina circles.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It astonishes me, Windblown, and several of you others, that you submitted poems as graceful and free-flowing as if they had been written without ANY rules rather than with this barbed-wire necklace over your shoulders and around your arms! Although I shudder from the thought of trying one my (obsessive) self, I see in these the truth that adversity sometimes makes for grace.