May
10
Sestina: The Literary Gathering – Gavin Ewart
May 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
At one end of the peculiar table Jeremy sat, and talked about poetry to Carl. He was a bit of a nutter. Next to him, Sheila was eating a farinaceous dish. Lewis listened intently to the words of Ursula. They were all drinking cider. And so was Jane. There was something quiet and achieved about [...]
May
10
A Sarum Sestina – David Gascoyne
May 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Schooldays were centred round the tallest spire In England, whose chime-pealing ruled our lives, Spent in the confines of a leafy Close: Chimes that controlled the hours we spent in singing, Entered the classrooms to restrict our lessons And punctuated the half-times of games. The gravel courtyard where we played rough games During the early [...]
May
10
Equestrian Sestina – Donald Davie
May 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Horse, our poor creature, we treat as if elemental, Stupidly. This is unfeeling. True, he is fabulous; Goes, though, not like the wind, whatever his mettle; Nor, much as he ripples in motion, is he conditioned By a sky-god’s whims, like a river. Not there did the Norman Culture, that made him its talisman, ground [...]
May
10
Sestina of the River Road – James K. Baxter
May 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I want to go up the river road Even by starlight or moonlight Or no light at all, past the Parakino bridge, Past Atene where the tarseal ends, Past Koroniti where cattle run in a paddock, Past Operiki, the pa that was never taken, Past Matahiwi, Ranana, till the last step is taken And I [...]
May
10
Sestina of the Makutu – James K. Baxter
May 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
In the dream I am lost in a Maori graveyard Among the dunes of sand, And like a wave of black water The makutu hits me. No terror like this, Latrines, ovens, graves, a woman’s anger Splitting my skull with a stone axe, Yet it is Te Whiro who wields the axe Or else te [...]
May
10
Cressida (a lyric sequence) – James K. Baxter
May 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Swept clean of leaves, with stripped boughs, the garden Lifts black arms to the wan sky of winter, Mater Dolorosa: the orchid house Shuttered, and no birds by the pond’s clear glass Where the boy and dolphin stand, to summer constant Rapt yet in the daze of an archaic dream. Here was my hope planted, [...]
May
9
Altaforte – Ezra Pound
May 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
LOQUITUR: En Bertrans de Born. Dante Alighieri put this man in hell for that he was a stirrer up of strife. Eccovi! Judge ye! Have I dug him up again? The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. “Papiols” is his jongleur. “The Leopard,” the device of Richard Coeur de Lion. I Damn it all! all [...]
May
9
Sestina of the Tramp-Royal – Rudyard Kipling
May 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Speakin’ in general, I’ave tried ‘em all The ‘appy roads that take you o’er the world. Speakin’ in general, I’ave found them good For such as cannot use one bed too long, But must get ‘ence, the same as I’ave done, An’ go observin’ matters till they die. What do it matter where or ‘ow [...]
May
9
Sestina – Elizabeth Bishop
May 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
September rain falls on the house. In the failing light, the old grandmother sits in the kitchen with the child beside the Little Marvel Stove, reading the jokes from the almanac, laughing and talking to hide her tears. She thinks that her equinoctial tears and the rain that beats on the roof of the house [...]
May
9
In the darkness, the ocean deposits life on a stretch of sand that will, much later, become woodlands in Indiana – John Lyon
May 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Evenings, as the sun sank into darkness and the unfurling Atlantic ocean tossed foam carelessly upon the sand, sadly depositing the detritus of life; entangled seaweed and rotting wood; I would think of my home in Indiana. The Costa del Luz is unlike these fields in Indiana where the corn rattles in the late summer [...]