Sestina

. The poem "Mexican Sestina" by Geoffrey Smagacz read by the poet himself at the Society of Classical Poets online Poetry Symposium on June 28, 2025: . https://youtu.be/tk0n16HWvmE Video created by Andrew Benson Brown.

. One Dumb Mistake When young I made a dumb mistake And was arrested by the cops. I found myself alone in court. Needless to say, my case was lost. And I was sentenced by the judge For murder: ten to twenty years. In prison I had many years To...

. Mexican Sestina Perhaps I left because I got too bored, and no one could put sense in my thick head, or talk me out of trekking to the beach by reading newsclips of prolific death by drug cartels or government. Not one could change my plans to move to...

. A Christmas Eve Sestina “He who sings prays twice.” ---Saint Augustine The vagabond had too much Christmas cheer. He doesn’t notice that the air is cold Although his clothes are unseasonably light. A crowd of carolers comes by to sing Of Good King Wenceslaus, The First Noel. Oh, Sir,...

. The Meat Purveyor’s Son Aesthetically impaired, she was the heir to daddy’s fortune. She was plumpish, short and much too close together were the eyes. She hankered after marriage with a man to birth at least a daughter and a son. Alas! She wasn’t what you’d call an English...

. Last Visit to the Beach a sestina The beach, untouched by Time throughout the years As millions of waves washed from the sea, As Time transformed me, now no more a boy, Where I would walk each season on that sand, Each decade by my side a different dog,...

. Crossing the Swamp After about an hour hiking the swamp, I knew. A week’s rains flooded out the trail. Tall sameness of pines stood round me. Stagnant water, coffee dark, spread before me. My new boots stamped sucking cleats to nowhere on red mud. I knew! But first, denial....

. Red Flags a sestina sonnet The national flags of the Westerners’ lands Turn red in the dim, fading light of the sunset, Like Communist red—bloody floors in a prison. All the flags look the same when the light fades away. Distinctions of flags have all faded away; You can’t...

. Circles It seems to me that living comes in circles, That nothing, even this, is ever new, That all that we create is a stale rhyme, A now that cannot cover marks of then. It seems to me that every extant thought Comes back again, as sure as fall...

. Sestina 276 On the night of April 14-15, 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students were kidnapped from a high school by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria The dream was vivid, sickeningly strong, the type that wakes you up because extreme duress propels your pounding heart along...

. Rosarium a sestina A rose arises red from its green sheath Adorned with swords that prick and pierce: the thorn, Whose vigil kept ensures its life's not brief. Unmatched in charm though fresh from garden born The rose enrobes in em'rald linen leaf Eclipsed only by ruby jew'lry worn. The...

  I lift my eyes and pray to God above, deliver me, dear Lord, from Satan's Hell. I come to You with heart brimful of Love, content to drink life's water from Your well. And if, by chance, I do not measure up, perhaps a drop of mercy from Your...

The lamp holds sway along the shadowed streets A penumbra encircles its sweet shine As night rests softly like a feathered cloak Upon a multitude of dancing stars And night and stars and lamp become a song A story writ in music’s measured bars The lamp’s penumbra swings on shadowed...

by Dusty Grein The sestina originated among the troubadours of medieval France's Provence region, and the modern thirty-nine line form is attributed to one of these traveling poet entertainers of the twelfth century, Arnaut Daniel. Daniel's sestina form was admired by Dante Alighieri, who introduced it to Italian poetry as...

  In China now are shadows forged from fire, a DNA pre-history. They cloud troubled villages, rice fields, goldfish ponds. Stones form, creating outlines with moving corners of such mild movements of peace. Finest threads link, form love that birth-screams, sucks air from smoke. This China has two hues, crimson...

Oh sad age, how the years will pass us by, Pass us and then our last visions refuse, Refuse us to look on our childhood skies: Oh daughter I am a burden to you, And this vision of mine, oh cherished lake, Passes my mind and troubles me too late....

The village school is cold and still. Its entrance gate is rusted shut, the playground overwhelmed by sounds of loaded lorries, hissing past, no noise but theirs to fill a school where only shadows come to play. A figure joins the shadow play. It was a life ago, but still...

The purple snail (Purpura patula pansa) is found in the Mixtec villages of the Oaxacan Coast in Mexico. The inhabitants carefully bleed the snails and then return them to the rocks. But due to illegal dyeing and the consumption of snails, the purple snail is now threatened with extinction.  ...