An exercise in wordsmithing...
Last night I made myself get some thoughts down on paper, but not too sure I am in love with them (I mean, I don't even really want to take them out to dinner). So, I am going to pull out some key words from that failure to launch and try out a sestina in order to see what else might be rolling around in the ol' noggin.
For those who don't know, a sestina is a type of poem where you choose six words, preferably a mixture of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on and you must use each of those words at the end of a sentence for six stanzas, and end it all with a tercet that is three lines and each of those three lines contains two of your chosen words. Make sense? Sure it does. Here is the breakdown:
Stanza 1 word order: 123456
Stanza 2 word order: 615243
Stanza 3 word order: 364125
Stanza 4 word order: 532614
Stanza 5 word order: 451362
Stanza 6 word order: 246531
Tercet: (line one uses 6 and 2) (line two uses 1 and 4) (line three uses 5 and 3)
My six words in order 1-6: ghost, tense, memory, strain, unknown, love
__________________
I can feel you floating in my heart like a ghost.
Your laughter makes me tense.
My imagination is not big enough for your memory.
Keeping you close; my muscles strain.
Do I remember how you take your coffee? Unknown.
What I do know is we were defined by love.
What do I really know of love?
It stays around forever like a determined ghost.
I wish it was more than an unidentified unknown.
Thoughts of what we were make me tense.
What was once so easy should not cause this strain.
God, how I love that memory.
Bringing to life this single memory.
Giving me an eternity to love.
Stopping the tears is not an unpleasant strain.
Comforting to the soul, like a ghost.
Forgetting to be tense.
Longing again for the surprise in the unknown.
What a gift I found in the unknown.
Buried underneath the ashes of a memory.
Past or present - - no matter the tense.
It's always love.
Even when my soul flies and I become a shadow or ghost.
I hope you always see; shade your eyes and strain.
My head knows not of my heart and its strain.
Unrequited love is always best served unknown.
Disappearing like a frightened ghost.
Turning dreams into one long memory.
No matter how much I don't want to show love.
Knowing it would cause your smile to falter and go tense.
Please don't be tense.
Shake off the strain.
Remember the love.
There is nothing to fear in the unknown.
All you can do is make another memory.
Wait for another ghost.
My dear love, you make me tense.
You've become a ghost, buckling beneath the strain.
What could've been is a gamble unknown, what was is the best memory.
__________________
There, that's a sestina. BAM!
For those who don't know, a sestina is a type of poem where you choose six words, preferably a mixture of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on and you must use each of those words at the end of a sentence for six stanzas, and end it all with a tercet that is three lines and each of those three lines contains two of your chosen words. Make sense? Sure it does. Here is the breakdown:
Stanza 1 word order: 123456
Stanza 2 word order: 615243
Stanza 3 word order: 364125
Stanza 4 word order: 532614
Stanza 5 word order: 451362
Stanza 6 word order: 246531
Tercet: (line one uses 6 and 2) (line two uses 1 and 4) (line three uses 5 and 3)
My six words in order 1-6: ghost, tense, memory, strain, unknown, love
__________________
I can feel you floating in my heart like a ghost.
Your laughter makes me tense.
My imagination is not big enough for your memory.
Keeping you close; my muscles strain.
Do I remember how you take your coffee? Unknown.
What I do know is we were defined by love.
What do I really know of love?
It stays around forever like a determined ghost.
I wish it was more than an unidentified unknown.
Thoughts of what we were make me tense.
What was once so easy should not cause this strain.
God, how I love that memory.
Bringing to life this single memory.
Giving me an eternity to love.
Stopping the tears is not an unpleasant strain.
Comforting to the soul, like a ghost.
Forgetting to be tense.
Longing again for the surprise in the unknown.
What a gift I found in the unknown.
Buried underneath the ashes of a memory.
Past or present - - no matter the tense.
It's always love.
Even when my soul flies and I become a shadow or ghost.
I hope you always see; shade your eyes and strain.
My head knows not of my heart and its strain.
Unrequited love is always best served unknown.
Disappearing like a frightened ghost.
Turning dreams into one long memory.
No matter how much I don't want to show love.
Knowing it would cause your smile to falter and go tense.
Please don't be tense.
Shake off the strain.
Remember the love.
There is nothing to fear in the unknown.
All you can do is make another memory.
Wait for another ghost.
My dear love, you make me tense.
You've become a ghost, buckling beneath the strain.
What could've been is a gamble unknown, what was is the best memory.
__________________
There, that's a sestina. BAM!
I love this! I've never heard of this type of poem...how cool!
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