Sestina Challenge

Somebody has flowers
The ones planted by  rabbits
I stare down the sun
I swim the ocean
Count  von dracula sea waves
There are  doubts

Reason to doubt
Thank you for the flowers
We fly on fertile waves
We Beach the  rabbits
We calm the ocean
Our morning raises our sun

I walk in our  sun
I sleep in our starry night
Knighting a piece of our ocean
A security blanket for flowers
Awash in tempestuous rabbits
Caught splashing in waves

I am logging in after days and this comp has gone outta hand! AAAAH! LOVE IT. but I might just end up pulling my hair just to "judge" these amazing entries. I might need some help.

I realise I have clearly bitten more than I can chew by allowing 2 entries. Hahahaha. I haven't read all except the first few but a cursory glance tells me you guys have really put so much effort into this. Great job guys.

I posted something and THEN I read that the comp was closed. Too bad. I also read the rules again and the definition of sestina by which I wrote mine was totally wrong. Oh well. I'll try again at some point. I've got time on my side.
John

It mite bee closed in canada
But its still open elsewear

thinlane said:I posted something and THEN I read that the comp was closed. Too bad.

Thinlane..john darlin...i.dont think it is...

Aarti..you have a message from me dove. Love ya

It's ok, as I said in the edit of my first comment, the definition that I wrote mine by was totally wrong and it wasn't until i reread the rules here that I realized that I'd screwed up. Short memory. I'm just going to call it a long poem on my page. Time spent but not time wasted.
John

thinlane said:It's ok, as I said in the edit of my first comment, the definition that I wrote mine by was totally wrong and it wasn't until i reread the rules here that I realized that I'd screwed up. Short memory. I'm just going to call it a long poem on my page. Time spent but not time wasted.
John

John, do you need some assistance?  Btw, I can't recall, have you added me to your follows?  I also owe you a message but I want to lavish some time on what I say in my reply and not rush.  Message your answers to me if you'd rather.  Thanks, dear.

aarti said:I realise I have clearly bitten more than I can chew by allowing 2 entries. Hahahaha. I haven't read all except the first few but a cursory glance tells me you guys have really put so much effort into this. Great job guys.

Ahh dear Aarti, from one dove to another, all is well, you'll see.  Also, email for you, sweetie (along with sooo much music sent earlier yesterday). Surround yourself with wonderful sounds! *flies off singing "...it's a beautiful morning..."*  <3

Hello Everyone

The competition is very much open. I have been busy for a while so I wasn't able to respond. I saw such lovely entries and got a bit overwhelmed with the response. I thank you all for participating. Please don't misunderstand what I wrote. I did not mean to end the competition or disregard the entries in anyway. You have time till 6th January, write away.

I have been reading all your poems but just haven't got down to reply to the entries. My bad. Next competition onward I shall do that.

Hope the miscommunication is sorted and there aren't any troubles. Have a great December!

rabbitquest said:
I hid in some bushes on a jogging trail
I saw an attractive woman jog by
I jumped from behind and began to innocently jog
my intentions are seduction or rape
So I say "Hi" to this voluptuous lady
I am completely ignored

I do not like to be ignored
So I know the next turn in this trail
I know the bloody fate of this lady
But I believe in mottos to live by
This woman need not suffer my instinct of rape
I increase my speed to a run from a Jog

I in front turn, in a backwards jog
I get her attention I am not ignored
She slows then stops her eyes ask "rape"?
I realize how wrong is my path, my trail
"No" my eyes say, I turn, and run on by
I saw in my prey my soulmate, my lady


As a mutiple rape survivor..this piece has me shaking, i threw up. Prey soul mate. I was attacked..in a public place. Nothing sexual about it. He tried writing me love letters after..i guess that in some minds...there is that connection. She does not reciprocate.

Sorry miss
No offence intendi

is this a sestina

Red earth

A trust so bonded, by beauty and tender admiration
A love so grounded by the blessed beauty
A body so sounded, by its cover
And of hearts so  broken they are felt dead
Love, with the quiet morsels laid in the earth
So aides rest at peace, the fallen.

And to the dead of the great fallen
the thieves in the night who plot to take of our admiration
fail so flatly, to the evil site of their fear side reflection of a heavenly earth
to bloody and gruesome is this deed of an ambition based on beauty
so tranquil will it be of their befallen destiny to be dead
and over their graves let the green come and grow, as it seems to cover

the cold wind makes it toll to also cover
the fearless as a life taken to be fallen
smitten by the frost, and dream of ambition, now laid to dead
forever lost with crows of dear admiration
of dream felt and slept, that could never bestowed true beauty
war could never grow anything on this great green earth

something must exist that can only grow on the earth
for common reasons so it my cover
be lowered down as a set to recover, the wind of good breath, of true soldiers, the true beauty
of the souls of the fallen
they should rest instead livith dead

the memory them not seems not to be dead
even buried beneath the earth
like a meaningful of true admiration
where one rightfully says, to when they will cover
now says, in the minds of the children's soldiers, who remain fallen
to their reason, a reason they called beauty

they lay for ever buried beneath the earth
livening as thy cover
and in the mind of the dearest admiration
in the dearest admiration
lives with them as the cover
that continue the color the earth.

From with love come this stanza
of a romanticized set of words,
an embellished, brusque beauty, of a poem
a love I've known my whole life since our form
from sweetest features ts told me it be seized
if only things of perfect measure, are at sure that wish to be please

for you love of insight is what does the please
the insight if a beautiful mind, like of self written stanza
my first dream which were we do part and chases after, are in dead a dream seized
with carefully tender, we come close to use words
to complete them in a perfect form
an order, just to, and the opportunity just make another majestically poem

and with the beauty if a poem
comes only the fury to please
a feeling kept inside and could only be shown in its true form
a dream of words created to make the perfect stanza
and with words
is only seized

just as as the duty it is of a song to seized
enjoyed just like the duty of a poem
and for beauty there is indeed a need for words
for imagination is a please
like love is in the stanza
just like perfect form

of a poets love for form
is something they do choose, and is seized
as the poets love for a stanza
is the personal thoughts in their poems
the ones they wish to show, the ones they wish to please
and the ones with right words
the words
in the perfect form
things that shape our world as we please
a dream of a love known to be seized
like a breaths in a poem
is ever changing, lays as a less mature stanza

all alike to be seized
all alike, a like every different poem
a knew  breath of different a stanza

is grown upward and a with that a new breath of a new stanza
comes the growth of a poem
and a poet, who's heart is left open to be seized

Hi, this is my first post here, thought I might enter a sestina I've just finished, hope you like it

Meet Arnold Gravesman

Arnold Gravesman rises just before the dawn
Shaves, slips on his socks, hair in center parting
A shit at 6am, bowels like clockwork
Then coffee and on Fridays a rolled up cigarette.
To keep a vice in check a man must let off steam
From time to time or of himself make a beast.

On the tube he dreams of lusty nights, the beast
With two backs rutting on the moors at dawn.
As the damp upon his trousers turns to steam
He slips his paper on his lap imagining thighs parting
And what might happen if he lit a strangers cigarette
But even in his day-dreams knows this would not work.

Where would he meet a woman anyway? Work?
Unlikely and past 40 dating is a different kind of beast.
Stood alone at parties behind a fog of cigarettes
People pairing off you wait it out till dawn
And risk being that guest showing no signs of departing.
Best to pop off early-ish and under your own steam.

There are, he’s heard, certain parlours and steam
Rooms down Soho around the corner from work
But to go would require a certain effort, a parting
Of his work-day self and that bit that is the beast.
On these thoughts a realisation begins to dawn.
He stubs one out then lights another cigarette.

In the morning, still burning bright, the cigarette
Is dashed into the earth. The smoke and steam
Rising from the grass lit by the dawn
Mingle into one. Thoughts turn to work
And how they keep him tethered like a beast
To a desk and after 40 years his parting

Gift will be some gold tatt, ‘Here’s to parting!
You made it!’ And, ‘Here’s a case to store your cigarettes.’
Embossed with a family crest, not yours, a beast
Stares mournfully from the box.  Brought back to earth by the steam
And whistles from the kettle, he remembers there is work
To be done, closes his eyes and remembers, that ‘it’s darkest before the dawn.’

Awakening, a beast swaddled in steam,
He checks his center parting, slips his cigarettes
Into his work shoes, shuts the locker on the night and strides into the dawn.