holy shit, i wrote a form poem!
last night i wrote my first-ever sestina, one because the blank verse sonnets and syllabic poems are getting a bit boring and two because i admit its really not fair to hate sestinas just because of That Girl In Senior Comp Who Wrote All Those Sestinas.
(although, really...get an effing life).
anyway...
Smoke Sestina
It was Paul Henreid who made me want to smoke-
how deftly he held two cigarettes in his mouth,
one for Bette Davis-a daring debonair move,
so beautified by the silver screen’s light;
so immortal, that slick cinematic moment.
Now, there was a man who needed no words.
It seems all we have between us are words,
thick-veiling the room like an ocean of smoke.
Weary of our voices, I stop speaking a moment
to lift a cigarette, white, clean-seeming, to my mouth,
leaning across the restaurant table, borrowing a light
from the candle, making our shadows move.
Our silhouettes are all that ever move,
or seem to-faceless negatives, without words.
They’re jostled by the frantic interplay of light
and shadow, silky and amorphous as the smoke
now escaping me, slyly sidling out my mouth,
having slid in and out of me in a moment.
I’m thinking of Paul and Bette in this moment,
wondering whether it is indeed possible to move
from the aesthetic instant, two cigarettes in one mouth,
to something real, or realer-to love, or to words
of love, to something more substantive than smoke,
than pictures of smoke, than the black and white light.
And so what happens when the long-admired light
of the movie screen is extinguished, the moment
the credits roll, and our characters go up in smoke?
What happens when the audience is made to move
from their cinema seats, and the scripted words
are stripped from the dashing hero’s mouth?
Across the table, I’m watching your mouth;
I see kiss I want to take from you, emitting light
from your lips. I’m choking on unspoken words.
This is my diffidence speaking, saying: in a moment
you will tire of me, won’t you, you’ll want to move
to someone new: who doesn’t bore you, who doesn’t smoke.
But maybe to me, women will always be a moment-
all of them only less beautiful Bettes, begging a light;
I can observe our scenes, our curling histories in smoke.
(although, really...get an effing life).
anyway...
Smoke Sestina
It was Paul Henreid who made me want to smoke-
how deftly he held two cigarettes in his mouth,
one for Bette Davis-a daring debonair move,
so beautified by the silver screen’s light;
so immortal, that slick cinematic moment.
Now, there was a man who needed no words.
It seems all we have between us are words,
thick-veiling the room like an ocean of smoke.
Weary of our voices, I stop speaking a moment
to lift a cigarette, white, clean-seeming, to my mouth,
leaning across the restaurant table, borrowing a light
from the candle, making our shadows move.
Our silhouettes are all that ever move,
or seem to-faceless negatives, without words.
They’re jostled by the frantic interplay of light
and shadow, silky and amorphous as the smoke
now escaping me, slyly sidling out my mouth,
having slid in and out of me in a moment.
I’m thinking of Paul and Bette in this moment,
wondering whether it is indeed possible to move
from the aesthetic instant, two cigarettes in one mouth,
to something real, or realer-to love, or to words
of love, to something more substantive than smoke,
than pictures of smoke, than the black and white light.
And so what happens when the long-admired light
of the movie screen is extinguished, the moment
the credits roll, and our characters go up in smoke?
What happens when the audience is made to move
from their cinema seats, and the scripted words
are stripped from the dashing hero’s mouth?
Across the table, I’m watching your mouth;
I see kiss I want to take from you, emitting light
from your lips. I’m choking on unspoken words.
This is my diffidence speaking, saying: in a moment
you will tire of me, won’t you, you’ll want to move
to someone new: who doesn’t bore you, who doesn’t smoke.
But maybe to me, women will always be a moment-
all of them only less beautiful Bettes, begging a light;
I can observe our scenes, our curling histories in smoke.