Today’s prompt for Writer’s Digest Poetic Asides poem-a-day challenge is to write a sestina, or since it’s Two for Tuesday, write about a sestina.
I didn’t think I could do this, but gave it a whirl anyway and got caught up in the challenge. I’ve started each line with a capital letter so if the long lines wrap, you’ll know it from the beginning lowercase letters! After I posted to the poem-a-day challenge page, I saw two words in the fifth stanza that should’ve been “our” to continue the concept of “I” and “us” that I began with. Oh well, fixed it here.
“Look Upon Your Vain Hope, King of Pride”
I gaze upon the stars
At night, their rays like tears
Of joy, of wonder that explode
Into grief upon seeing Leviathan
Roam upon the earth, that creature the demons cheer,
That God created for our misery.
We, who inhabit this place of misery,
Look to the heavens, to the stars
For their cheer
To dry our tears
That the great Leviathan
Did gloat to see in us explode.
And now our anger roils, it explodes,
Cloaking our misery
That he feeds on, that fat Leviathan.
But our fury reflects off him to feed the stars,
Who shed drops and drops of fiery tears
Upon us to bring back in us a spark of cheer.
Oh, so much angst in us does need cheer
To succor, else our hearts explode
Into crimson gushers flooding the land, drowning our tears.
Oh, such misery
They do see, the stars
When they look upon the proud work of Leviathan.
He curls his tail, he purses his mouth, he squeezes his body round his happy prey, does Leviathan.
He feasts on complacent pride and cheers
To see from their mighty fortresses, the constellations’ impotent fury in his starring
Role on earth, his domain of rock formed when God the universe did explode.
He looks fondly on the banquet his happy prey creates from our misery,
He and them slaking their thirst with our tears.
From the heavens, drop by drop, claret and choler tears
Fizzle and burn the armour of the fearless Leviathan.
But he heeds nothing but what he wants: misery.
His enemy is cheer,
And he quickly explodes
It back up to the stars.
But the stars dry their tears
As God, as Ahura Mazda explodes the vain Leviathan.
And all we who suffer cheer to see the end of our misery.
