Best Sestina Poems

When Madness Rides on Moonlight

Days pass into the weakest of loveless nights. The moon blinks.
The stars swirl beneath the colored brush of Van Gogh. He links.
Comets trail snowfields of light pass agonized cypresses, schizophrenic concussion.
On and on, the wind twirls the trees and does not complain,
nor, does the cosmos cringe awaiting reciprocation.
Lightening bugs mimic the starlight, atoms sneer.

Those who spout love and friendship abandon him sneering.
Their images dance beneath his half closed lids, when he blinks.
Though denied visual compass, his soul does not reciprocate.
Through pain, physical and mental, palpable pain, he still links,
with the life which has both absorbed and excluded him not complaining.
Night passes without his mistress, Sien. His mind writhes, eternal concussion.

His torn visage trembles with the brass sounds the storm's ranting concussions.
The butcher, the baker the candlestick maker, derides and sneers. 
How unmerciful is this cycle, this God to whom he does not complain?
And, if indeed, lack of mercy is just, may he not know “Why?” Time blinks.
Just the act of thinking causes pain. Only painting connects him to the link.
He must accept both the pain and the art as gifts, choosing not to reciprocate.

Voices always the voices, the paint, the moon, the voices, reciprocate.
He chases the mice. The cheese, pewter plate and all, falls with concussion.
He rubs the backs of gnarled hands across his lids, maintaining the link. 
“How? Why?" But, the mice eating his cheese grimace and sneer.
Inside the cottage sunflowers shimmer and wiggle in vases, as he blinks.
Stumbling, he falls in an attempt to sit, the insubstantial chair does not complain.

He had thought God clear, clear as sunlight, yet the damn paint Lord! complained. 
He was Not God, and try as he would, the light escaped. He MUST reciprocate.
After all who was he, but a mere man, ashes to dust, life blinks.
“Ah death…le grand mal…no minor concussion,”
He must escape this mortal coil, join the celestial spin without their sneers.
Sick, he was sick, yes, sick to death of not being understood, no link.

Copyright © Debbie Guzzi | Year Posted 2010

The Stars and Beyond

As we speculate the clear evening sky
Iridescent with jewels which we call stars,
Alive in our hearts stirs the endless dream
To unwind and solve the mysteries of Earth
And unfathomed vastness of cosmic space.
Since time began, this has been our great wish.

Because of this strong and enduring wish
Our minds are forever drawn toward the sky, 
Where in the blankness of great timeless space
Drift along planets, our Sun, Moon, and stars.
And amidst it all, our minuscule Earth
Seems lost in this cloudy, galactic dream.

But humans will always anxiously dream
Of someday achieving this inborn wish;
Discovering answers about the Earth;
Exploring the unknown realms of the sky
To find our way among planets and stars,
Erasing the boundaries of time and space.

What truths does it hold, this infinite space?
Will answers always be vague as a dream?
Do other planets with suns as our stars
Have beings like earthlings who hope and wish?
Do they gaze at their own eternal sky;
Know of our galaxy, Sun, Moon, and Earth?

Though we're secure on this great mammoth Earth,
When we contemplate the vastness of space,
We know we are only dust in the sky;
Our own importance dissolves like a dream,
For matter not how we wonder and wish
We are naught amid the planets and stars.

Gems on black velvet, our heaven of stars;
So close they all seem to mortals of Earth;
So often we stare at them—make a wish—
Yet billions of light years measure the space
In between. When will we wake from our dream?
Solve all the puzzles which darken our sky?

Twinkle on great sky with your rhinestone stars—
Continue, sweet dream, for beings of Earth!
Eternal as space is our hope and wish!


Sandra M. Haight

~10th Place~
Contest: The Poet's Heart
Sponsor: Greg Barden
Judged: 07/15/2017

~1st Place~
Contest: Favorite
Sponsor: Casarah Nance
Judged: 05/04/2016

~1st Place~
Contest: Star People
Sponsor: Anthony Slausen
Judged: 12/27/2015
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Sestina: A highly structured form of poetry consisting of six six-line stanzas and ending with three-line half-stanza (thirty-nine lines). The end words of the first stanza are repeated in strict order as end words in the other stanzas.

The concluding half-stanza uses the same six words; 1,3 and 5 in the centers of each line, and 2, 4 and 6, at the ends.

A cyclical life

Here in the heavy depths of insolent woes,
We gesture and talk and waste our time,
Staking claim to each minute of our earthly life,
Running the hours through a clock by the day,
Never sated, not content to find even love,
Buried deep inside the petals of a perfect rose.

So was a metaphor created from the rose, 
Then plagiarized and used for all of time,
Simply here to represent the beauty of love,
A perfection to which we cannot aspire to in life,
Or even death, in the darkest of all those woes,
Great though they may seem by the passing day.

It's a fragile, soulful kind of love,
In the pressing presence of the breaking day,
Where your back breaks beneath ample woes,
And there just simply isn’t ever enough time,
To do what you plan to do with your life.
Then you start to resemble that rose.

Soft and delicate, with easy loss of life,
Mournful of the passage of time,
Counting down, day by dreary day,
Ever seeking out to find dear love,
The theoretical banishment of woes.
Such is the way of the deep red rose.

Has it ever occurred to us not to mark time?
Just to ignore it, along with any such woes,
Just to leap forth and enjoy life,
To live to the absolute fullest everyday,
And just as chosen by the poet's rose,
To find and hold on to, that one true love.

For I find, that it's mostly true these days,
That people don't make enough time,
For laughter and fullness in life,
So preoccupied with petty woes,
That they forget about the beauty of love,
And in doing that, they forget about the rose,

I know what the rose represents in my life,
And I work hard to expel my woes every day,
So that soon I will have time for true love.

*****Written in Sestina for Constance's Poetry 101 contest.*****
******* 5th Place winner*******
******Sarah Blake August 2010******

A sestina is a highly structured form of poetry consisting of six six-line stanzas and a three-
line envoy (thirty-nine lines). The end words of the first stanza are repeated in varied order
as end words in the other stanzas and also recur in the envoy.

Copyright © Lorrie Scheider | Year Posted 2010

Celebarating The Adventure Of Advent: A collaboration with Kai Michael Neumann

Universal elegy grieves and yet embraces shifts of paradigm
New beginnings consciousness initiates comprehends and thus proceeds from
Illusion’s delusion collusions misconceptions in the irritating
Vortex whirlpool immanent void of false containment

Enlightenment modern postmodern retro visionary futuristic aspirations
Resound in dialectical rebirth rejuvenation germinate constructive 
Sense meaning reflect serenity’s tentative confidence that the
Agony of climate change greed warfare ignorance destructive apathy
Liberates fusion confusion necessitates Aquarian communication of

Antagonism’s polar opposites contradictions complements

Cycles spheres of influence of grave repression gravitate
Revolve resolve with pushing pulling moons in metaphorical
Orbital mental psychological initiation shape incidences
Synchronicities collateral communal reason feeling responsibility

Transformation of the global madness inhumanity conjoins
Idealism and the darker side’s fallacies of fabrication

Conspiracy of muted spirit silence violation fade away transform to novel script

Communication courses discourses concur in co-operation
Obvious obscurity in the blip of human race’s evolution delimits 
Limitations iron cages hopes for new time place of reason beyond
Laissez-faire and hippie psychedelic stream of consciousness afar from
Anarchy self-righteous slavery rebellion mindlessness

Big oppressive bangs big brother’s obliterating over-information with
Onslaught of technology fail and falter when simplicity and esoteric
Rationale comprise enhance encompass the necessary world view shifts

Ascent and ever changing climax revitalizes humanness thus gifts
Truth deriving comprehension from ‘objective’ communal subjectivity with
Intuition insight inclination outside from the rigid boxed conformity

Order may be found again in the chaos of our time of misrepresented bedlam
New Age Aquarius delivers acts upon fresh constellation contemplates the Universe 

Celebrating the adventure of Advent this one is written very uniquely. 
During this transition Oh, the ubiquity of perception, reception most gratefully
Each new day begins with one’s first thought, amazingly
Though, this thought did not require any forethought, excitingly,
I thought, what if I thought in forethought, demandingly
Boldly I choose, a path of understanding.  Then Daringly,

Choosing to forgive myself, then choosing to forgive everyone else.  I gratefully
wished upon distant star and my cry did travel far.  Vega, amazingly
did answer my call, in a dream from My whispering old cemetery scene . Excitingly
 I dashed out of my bed, outside looked to sky, then cried Eternal welcome to Aquarius demandingly.
The Joy of this revelation, thought and manifestation determining one’s destination. So, daringly
I choose to be enlightened by the universal code, which is downloaded to each individual uniquely.

Travel I have far and wide, and gone I have, from high to low. Amazingly
though, I realize know, that I had always been seeking to know.  Excitingly
turning each new page, certain and determined to be my own sage. Daringly
I vied, nothing would make me swallow my pride.  Demandingly
I had thought,  When we get there that all would play fair.  Thought I did, uniquely
as most should do.  Now, A little Alliteration to say we too are gratefully

The stranger within me does no longer be because know I see. Life does have excitingly
creative individual versatility. Change it does for you, whom call upon it consistent and demandingly.
Remaining keenly observant in search for knowledge and do so daringly.
Questioning what dares seem query logic and reason itself. While never failing to truly uniquely 
understand another for having their own uniqueness  and being grateful
for be blessed with this, understanding of knowing each individual creation amazingly.

.
Target destination is fixed after course has been made demandingly.
Each individual soul being has chosen this mission daringly. 
Having arrived in this Third dimensional reality to uniquely 
instruct in the revolution of Love is a four letter word and do so very thankfully and gratefully
to each and every soul of light that exists. Uplifted into the light I call out amazingly.
 Higher Power, The all High and Universal Father of All, whom is the one that is truly exciting.

Inviting all He does whom choosing a star path daringly.
His message has been sent to each and every one of you uniquely 
in its own way. We should all give blessing and thanks, while being gratefully
for each and every new amazingly
fantastic and an Emphasis on an excitingly
creative Acrostic man day. After being both commanding humbly and so, demandingly.
,
Who is excitingly and amazingly, demandingly and 
daringly to be uniquely and gratefully Different? 

Copyright © Steven Henderson | Year Posted 2016

Life Lesson

                                   
I love being young, getting to ride the roller coasters.
The sound, tick, tick, tick, tick-like a heartbeat racing to the top.
Then, surprised even when you know it’s coming, dropped into the abyss.
Something always pulls it down, like gravity.
It’s frustrating, riding something so close to being dead.
So far away but still so close, seating rows.

I hate being so close to, yet so far from the row.
She was in with me on this roller coaster.
Adrenaline rushed my body so fast almost leaving me dead.
The blood flowed so fast emphasizing the highs of the top.
But something keeps pulling me down, gravity.
Here I am again, back in the abyss.

In the ride, weeks of no communication, the beginning of the end, the abyss.
The scariest. My worst fear of my youth. Looking back at the rows,
I see her, with my own image, my heart sinks more. I hate you gravity.
But it’s the only thing that fuels the roller coaster.
Nothing makes me happier than bringing it back to the top.
Let’s hope this isn’t so abrupt, so fast, like the last one, leaving me dead.

How I hope so much, so much hope still not dead.
The heart, the love, the eternal abyss.
Strikes me back with enough momentum to reach the top.
Lines, love, flashing like an old film, with rows.
Showing me a movie, reminding me of, a roller coaster.
The movie explained that the only thing that keeps it going is gravity.

Thank you gravity.
My worries are gone and dead.
Just accept it, and love the roller coaster.
Appreciate the loneliness of the abyss.
The reason you’re here is for the ride, not the rows.
I just want to enjoy the youth and its happy tops.

This coaster, like love has its tops.
But something brings it down like gravity.
Distanced with rows,
Never seeing her again, thinking she’s dead.
But deeper and deeper coming out of the abyss.
The complicated life of the young, the love of roller coasters.

Get on the roller coaster, rise to the top.
Don't worry about the drop to the abyss, It’s because of gravity
That you’re not dead, and I don't care about the rows.

Copyright © Marcus Jjaks Reyes | Year Posted 2013

A Mouse And A Man

In the anters and shadows of this baleful life
perhaps the little brown mouse searching in silence
bewray a lonesome story behold

For eyes to wander a brief candle behold
in hushed light, enwheeled...this pitiful life
if only, my friend, to peer in silence

where love had flown in years of silence
to gape for dawn, a friendship behold
in ghostly thought of scurried life

From the cold reality of life where painful silence smothers, Behold!! compassion is born..

___________________________________



Definitions-

Anters - Caves
Baleful-Mortal
Bewray-Reveal
Brief Candle- Life is compared to a candle flame
Enwheeled- Encompassed
Ghostly-Holy
Gape-Long/Yearn

Things We Think

                              Things We Think

He said, “Every man is busy earning money.” 
She said, “Is there anything more important than love?”
He said, “Is there anything more important than sex?”
She said, “I think we all just fear death.”
He said, “It’s like the Cats in the Cradle we just need more time.”
She said, “I think we really need more space.”

He moved out to a place with more space.
She soon did not have enough money.
She had to leave behind the house and love.
Once they vowed nothing would do them part not even death.
She never learned the aborted child’s sex.
Biologically he still had more time.

He was ambitious, indoctrinated into the ascent of money.
She worked her fingers to the bone, until her death.
He afforded local expensive sex.
She began to view local nature as expansive space.
He did not connect space and time.
She knew what connected it all was love.

In time he found a new love.
In love, she found time.
He equated good passion with good sex.
She found the emerald walls of nature the best space.
He loved the crisp or dirty, rumpled, green of money.
Homeless— she was reprimanded in the rain “You’ll catch your death!”

it's been said,

The root of all evil is money.
Money can’t buy you love.
Nothing is certain but taxes and death.
I don’t know the question, but the answer is sex.
I need my space.
All we have is time.

I’ve learned to give love and learned that is love.
I’ve learned one’s time is worth more than one’s money.
I’ve learned a small space in nature explains all infinite space.
I’ve learned that gender should not be judged by one’s sex.
I’ve learned that empathy slows time.
I’ve learned from the leaves of grass there is no death.

He is more than his money and she is more than her sex.
In death we find love.
In space there exist time.

Copyright © Toni Orban | Year Posted 2016

Whispers of my fair maiden

Alone, there I stood by the bench in the park.
On a leash by my side, my protective young hound.
In the distance I heard the echo of whispers;
As a dark hooded figure approached in a cloak.
She stopped and looked at me this beautiful maiden.
Rose like lips smiled gently, against skin bright and fair.

She took down her hood, released hair long and fair;
I offered my hand and on bench did we park.
We looked at the stars appearing so maiden;
As we talked of our youths and her company I did hound.
Then the moon cast its shadows and darkness did cloak;
Whilst trees bustled, rustling, the night timely whispers.

As we cuddled up close, to get warm friendly whispers;
It grew colder, I gave my jacket and said it wasn't fair.
So we got up to leave and she bunched up her cloak;
We walked to the car to the place I did park.
In the back did we place my faithful friend hound,
And we drove into the night on our journey so maiden.

We drove and we drove till the dawn arrived maiden.
To the rustling chorus of natures whispers;
And a fox searching for breakfast did stalk and did hound;
Saw chickens, roosters and hens such a fair!
In burrowed field did monstrous combine park,
Whilst autumn leaves rained tumbling natures cloak.

We went to my home and and we hung up the cloak.
Then I partook a chance to kiss the hand of my maiden.
While we spoke of the night at the park.
We enfolded ourselves to bodily whispers;
And I nestled amongst all of hair fair;
But when in heat of moment the barks of my hound.

A knock on wall from angry neighbors, please shut up the hound.
So I fed him, watered and let him outside; around me her cloak.
Then returned to my angel so beautifully fair,
Her skin looked so radiant my heavenly maiden;
That I caressed it so longingly, with gentle whispers,
Then stopped and remembered the leash in the park.

Then cursing the hound; I tell the dear maiden.
Dressed quickly, coats, cloak; and I love you whispers.
She tells me not fair, and we go to the park!!!

Copyright © Anna-Marie Docherty | Year Posted 2010

Columbine

That tragic day the school bells tolled
in April nineteen ninety-nine:
the massacre at Columbine,
the rage of Harris and Klebold.

Some say that Harris was a cold
and grandiose young psychopath,
who wished to show the world his wrath:
the rage of Harris and Klebold.

Some say that guns should not be sold.
Some blame it on deep discontent.
Can we predict? Can we prevent
the rage of Harris and Klebold?

That tragic day the school bells told 
the rage of Harris and Klebold.

Copyright © evan bowen | Year Posted 2014

Death Undignified, Fort Laramie 1860

High noon in Fort Laramie, the summer sun is oppressive.
A whalebone corset digs into my body’s tender parts.
Peering from the shop, my hand touching the pane
of dearly brought glass, I feel the vibration of incoming riders.
The pale blue sky disappears in a cloud of dust. 
Children playing hoop, let it drop with an unheard clatter.

Inside Mrs. Dreary’s provisioner, cutlery falls with a clatters.
Outside the store, horses race pell-mell with the oppressive
sound of thunder. “Indians,” children scream, running through the dust.
Folks in buggies, wagons, and on horseback flee for other parts.
“Sioux,” I nod. Gunshots ring through the air savaging the riders.
Mrs. runs up the backstairs carrying the baby. There’s a scream of pain.
Arrow flights buzz by shattering shop window panes.
The Indians leap from horse back to the tile roof raising a clatter.
Mr. Dreary descends, Sharp shooter in hand, and aims at the riders.
A cat’s eye marble falls from the toy display; the scent of fear oppresses.
He slams the door shut as shards of glass scatter, bullet parted.
“Mame, git, Gener’l Connor’ll kill me if y’ur dusted.”

My eyes wide-open owlish are full of tears and dust.
“Damn heathens” Mr. Dreary cusses. Bullets clip the broken pane.
Pulling me behind, opening the useless. “Thop” an arrow parts
his scalp. He falls backward, landing beside me, his spurs clattering.
The baby screams from upstairs. I turn to see Mrs. Dreary’s oppressive
grip on her dead husband. She grabs the Sharp, kills a passing rider.

The arriving soldiers round up the band of native riders.
Mrs. Dreary gets the babe, kicks the fallen marble in the dust
and walks through the door, into another type of oppression.
The soldiers are executing the Sioux braves. Children watch in pain.
Across the street a lone warrior perches. A roof tile clatters
to the dirt. His arrow flies and hits me life begins to part.

Blind with pain I fall forward facedown, numb, parting
the water in the horse trough left for the town’s riders.
My brass buttons and flint arrowhead scrape the tub clattering,
no one in the street notices my departure through the days dust.
My open mouth fills with the rancid, taste of pain.
“How improper,” is my last lucid thought, oppressive.

The clatter of hoofs rocks the trough punctuating my parting.
The oppression of man against man leaves with the riders.
Only dust and the pain of the living remain.

Copyright © Debbie Guzzi | Year Posted 2015

Dying Heart

Stabbed in the heart, I’m starting to bleed
I’m becoming cold as the touch of death
Yet I don’t want to say goodbye

Painful word, insane cry, sweet goodbye
Pain pounds on me as I bleed
Thumping me until I reach death

Life is being drained by the angel of death
Forcing me to say goodbye
Suffering the more I bleed

Yet even as I bleed to death I refuse to tell you goodbye

Copyright © Julie Alcin | Year Posted 2013

DREAM CHASER

A dull Christmas eve, still it was better than most
I’d heard of winter and snow in places far away
Of cold and frozen waters and rains that fall like powder from the sky
Of words like mist, soft as a whispered kiss
Escaping from lips: red over a pale impression
Muttering words of things of the faraway place

I know not the feeling, only the idea of a place
And whatever feeling it evokes in me the most
Of these foreign notions, I have not one but many an impression
Of wonder and adventure and ways to sail away
On wooden or metal monsters that beckon the sea its cheek to kiss
In the in-between world of salt water, wind and sky

Not so here, no snow in this dry harmattan sky
I’d rather for a change of pace, a change of place
A place of apples and wine grapes and passions that deepen the kiss
Of hopes and dreams and wishful thinking for most
Come hopes! Come dreams! Come insane thoughts and take me away!
Far away, and in my place leave no impression

Rid it! On her alone I made some impression
Of two on a low hill beneath a big grey sky
Her eyes would haunt me screaming, “Why didn’t you take me with you, away?”
“To the place we had dreamed, the faraway place?”
Truth be told, she would prove really good, better than most
Even so, rid me of it with one final kiss

A flickering flame snuffed out with a kiss
It’s dying breath trailing a wispy impression
With that I lost what it was I wanted the most
Bartered for the image of a different sky
Alas a different time in a different place
Yet to find a place to stay that doesn’t lead away

Now a seasoned drifter wandering away
With tales of wonder and adventure and many a departure kiss
With yarns of many sights, yet yearning for only one place
For the place I left, leaving no impression
A place I must go only after I find the perfect sky
It was a dull Christmas eve, still it was better than most

Now in a place far away, making many an impression
Oh how I desire that kiss, under that same grey sky
Despite the faraway place, it is what I want the most
(sigh)

Copyright © Samuel Opara | Year Posted 2017