Sestina
Originally posted @ http://scruffy-duck.net
Okay, so a sestina is waaaaaaay too complicated for me to explain, but every stanza has to have the six key words finishing the lines in each of the six stanzas in a certain order (I made a table of mine) and then finishes with an envoy of three lines that includes all six key words (and depending on where you get your information, have to be in a certain order too). Complicated right? Click on the word sestina and I’m sure the link will be more helpful.
I’m basically playing with different forms for poetry class, because I always write free verse, and to write my portfolio would be easy if I didn’t stretch myself. So here I am, stretching. The villanelle, didn’t quite work out (I’m making another attempt) but I think this sestina is right, technically at least, even if it isn’t very good.
Slumber makes me weak,
this insomnia leaves me no stronger either.
I’ve spent hours lost awake at night,
lost entire mornings catching up on sleep,
never seeing any of the day’s light.
I crave the in between.
I often find myself crawling in between
reality and dreams that leave me weak
and I wake again, desperate for light
to save me, but it doesn’t help either
and I find I don’t want to go back to sleep,
back to the dreams that haunt my night.
Of course, what I need to help me sleep at night
drugs, pills, sleeping tablets could help me find the in between
to my all or nothing pattern of my sleep,
but drugs too, they make me weak,
and the dose I take barely works either
I still try though, like I haven’t seen the light.
And so I dread the coming of the morning light,
I’m desperate for the continuation of the night,
but hell, that’s not going to happen either
I sleep too little, too much, crave the in between.
These long nights awake leave me weak,
but even at it’s worst I still can’t sleep.
So I’m addicted to drugs to make me sleep,
the round and white, the easy to swallow and light,
heavenly when they work, and make me weak
allow me to sleep long through the night,
from bedtime to the alarm, I don’t wake in between.
Thought this fact brings me no comfort either.
Sometimes, dreams and nightmares, I’d take either,
because to dream, I must first sleep.
I find there is often nothing in between
the two, as I hide from the morning light
wishing desperately that I could sleep at night.
but instead all this leaves me feeling weak.
I am lost, with or without sleep at night,
constantly suffering in between darkness and light.
Slumber makes me weak, insomnia no stronger either.
r.l.w
Okay, so a sestina is waaaaaaay too complicated for me to explain, but every stanza has to have the six key words finishing the lines in each of the six stanzas in a certain order (I made a table of mine) and then finishes with an envoy of three lines that includes all six key words (and depending on where you get your information, have to be in a certain order too). Complicated right? Click on the word sestina and I’m sure the link will be more helpful.
I’m basically playing with different forms for poetry class, because I always write free verse, and to write my portfolio would be easy if I didn’t stretch myself. So here I am, stretching. The villanelle, didn’t quite work out (I’m making another attempt) but I think this sestina is right, technically at least, even if it isn’t very good.
Slumber makes me weak,
this insomnia leaves me no stronger either.
I’ve spent hours lost awake at night,
lost entire mornings catching up on sleep,
never seeing any of the day’s light.
I crave the in between.
I often find myself crawling in between
reality and dreams that leave me weak
and I wake again, desperate for light
to save me, but it doesn’t help either
and I find I don’t want to go back to sleep,
back to the dreams that haunt my night.
Of course, what I need to help me sleep at night
drugs, pills, sleeping tablets could help me find the in between
to my all or nothing pattern of my sleep,
but drugs too, they make me weak,
and the dose I take barely works either
I still try though, like I haven’t seen the light.
And so I dread the coming of the morning light,
I’m desperate for the continuation of the night,
but hell, that’s not going to happen either
I sleep too little, too much, crave the in between.
These long nights awake leave me weak,
but even at it’s worst I still can’t sleep.
So I’m addicted to drugs to make me sleep,
the round and white, the easy to swallow and light,
heavenly when they work, and make me weak
allow me to sleep long through the night,
from bedtime to the alarm, I don’t wake in between.
Thought this fact brings me no comfort either.
Sometimes, dreams and nightmares, I’d take either,
because to dream, I must first sleep.
I find there is often nothing in between
the two, as I hide from the morning light
wishing desperately that I could sleep at night.
but instead all this leaves me feeling weak.
I am lost, with or without sleep at night,
constantly suffering in between darkness and light.
Slumber makes me weak, insomnia no stronger either.
r.l.w