Today at the dVerse Poets pub it’s Sestina time!
This complex form contains six stanzas, each with six lines and concludes with a three line envoi. The pattern of the form is as follows:
1. A,B,C,D,E,F
2. F,A,E,B,D,C
3. C,F,D,A,B,E
4. E,C,B,F,A,D
5. D,E,A,C,F,B
6. B,D,F, E,C,A
7. BE, DC, FA (The envoi of three lines with BDF midline and ECA as the end lines.) Note: The Poetry Foundation gives this variation on the envoi: FB, AD, EC.
She’s sick. Her nose starts to run
and bleed. Crackling leaves
fall out of the trees and spread
a carpet of scratchy brown
over her world. She hugs and rocks
herself; staring down at a street
that mocks her. A battered street
sign wobbles, ignored. Cars run
through it and punkls throw rocks
in its face. The sight leaves her numb: she is like the brown
dented sign. The paranoia begins to spread.
Flinching beneath her bed spread,
she tries to forget about her street
life; but a trembling finger traces the brown
stain on her pillow. Her senses run
wild: she hears the scrape of leaves
outside, and swears they are sharding rocks
into powder. Salivating, she rocks
hard and shivers, tasting the spread
of howling madness. She feels the dead leaves
scrawling her name on the street.
Her best pair of stockings have a run
in each leg, but her five inch brown
stilettos are brand new. Her brown,
shiny hair swirls at her waist. And she rocks
across the asphalt knowing the run
in her stocking will spread
up her thighs with each strut. Street
life agrees with her tonight. Damp leaves
cling to one spiked heel as she leaves
her corner with some john in a brown
Chrysler. An hour later the street
is forgotten as she shaves sparkling rocks
into lines of powder. The euphoric spread
whispers–daring her imagination to run
beyond itself; run shrieking through wild leaves
burning with psychosis. With arms spread like brown
broken branches, she soars to the rocks in the street.
Ergo, the Ogre 