As I had mentioned, it has been a long time since I have finished a draft of poetry--five months in fact. I finished a three month old partial sestina draft yesterday and joined a writing group that met today. Below is the exercise piece I wrote for our group prompt. The prompt was to write about your totem animal. If you comment, you should let us know what yours is...
Below the group written practice piece is the main crux of this blog, my sestina Vernacular Harmony.
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Paws and Claws
Palmed skin pads push heavy paces
And I pulse press hard into rain heavy pavement.
French Quarter fallen water washes
Most things well away, but weary and worn souls
Soak the streets with their oil.
Urban unjust jungle of well liquor
And jazz rifters.
Ears pack pressed back
Into fur and pretty padded feet press flex
In depth with each step.
I stop placement on pause
Refresh my whiskers with a closed claw.
I roll my rangled head and
depthly ascend up roof chutes broken
Branch to broken branch and
Plant press on limb end in leaves, breathe once,
And jump...and jump...and jump....and
Land running roughly
Ranged ragged roof to
Ranged ragged roof
Find a fresh shuttered window to rest and
Let rumble an unsilent grumble
Through my sweat-ridden chest.
This is my jungle
Crouched knees on a rooftop in rumble
Signal to sign this ubran serengeti
They are blessed.
They are mine.
-cid galicia 7/1/13
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What is a Sestina?
Form[edit]
Although the sestina has been subject to many revisions throughout its development there remain several features that define the form. The sestina is composed of six stanzas of six lines (sixains), followed by a stanza of three lines (atercet).[4][23] There is no rhyme within the stanzas;[24] instead the sestina is structured through a recurrent pattern of the words that end each line,[4] a technique known as "lexical repetition".[25]
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Vernacular Harmony
You walk yourself up the stairs in steps of hard vernacular
And there sounds are split into a seven-set harmony.
Balcony bound dress slack suits walk in dialogue
And the buckle bound tenders bounce tongues.
What would like to drink boss? A smokey smile and a glance.
And each sipping soul plants roots of self and stands.
The hidden place is where to place the foot and stand.
A man walks through swamp song jazz that sags with vernacular.
Watch him pass chance to chance and glance to glance.
He stands against the mood in harmony.
The tracks trace paths through skirts and shirts and tongue
Brushing lip and lip and lip in dialogue.
The swamp hop fog in dialogue
Where the water-chalked gator-man drops needles in record stands.
Lips sip the corners of conversations and kiss cocktail tongues.
And dance-dippers these body-shift thinkers shag their swag in vernacular.
And I watch as the song takes swigs and shifts hips in harmony
From balcony man to dancing hands and liquor stands in glance.
The moon moves the mood with its balcony eye glance.
Wormwood words distill the ice cube curves of the evening’s dialogue.
They let loose and their eyes are used to taste the moving harmony.
The ceiling softly shakes them. The stairs softly grate them, whether they sit or stand.
The speaking is unspoken in the movement of the music’s vernacular.
Shoes lick the floors sweeping in swamp song with toes and heels and tongue.
And I can trace that she is out of place by the stillness in her tongue.
She is slant to the rhythm on entry, so I soften her with a glance.
Give her chance to find faith in the swampy evening shades of vernacular.
I give her soil to shift a sweet sink and be--with me in dialogue
How you doin love? Let me get you a drink. You just breathe there and stand.
Here love. A whiskey ginger. We relax in harmony.
That’s all we do, in harmony, is stand still in glance.
Don’t need to always move tongues to share swamp-song dialogue.
Just plant your jungle jazz feet, stand in heat, and be vernacular.
-cid galicia 6/30/13
Questions to answer if you'd like...
1.Is the poem clear or is it too foggy?
2. Are there any stanzas, lines, words that do not match or just do not work?
3. Is the poem, any stanzas, lines or words trying to do to much--making it too clogged?
4. Format: I would rather all stanzas have a similar measure throughout the poem,
any thought on how to measure back some of the longer lines?
5. Any other thoughts you had and would like to share.
thank you.
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