Visions Through A Splintered Door.
A Sestina is a poem with six fixed words, placed at the end of each line in the first stanza and then rotated in a fixed pattern throughout the rest of the poem. The final stanza is comprised of three lines, containing two of the words per line. I wrote this one in Iambic Pentametre and it's quite open to interpretation.
Visions Through A Splintered Door.
In lands by sea the soldiers rant and sing
To stem the fear that life takes flight from order.
The visions of a burnt and bloodied land
No cause to speak in strength, no sign of sense.
The singing shrieks through doors, enough to strip
Soft courage from the weak ‘till all is silence.
And from the lucid dark, beneath that silence,
Still seconds from the note last cast to sing,
A view of skin and softness comes and strips
In motions slow, one limb, another. Order
And stately speed are present. Now there’s a sense,
A feel of eyes and teeth; the vision lands.
It stalks through silent halls and through the lands
Of lukewarm meals and guns left cold and silent.
By chairs that hold no souls, no breath, nor sense,
Nor sign of life, save cooling flesh that sings
An untrue song of warmth, when truth is, order
Has fled the bodies; left their sinews stripped.
The skin and softness slithers in, no strip
Of light to show its way, the Darkling lands
By inner doors, where someone whispers orders -
An irony of sound; a plea to silence.
A smile would come if lips were there to sing,
A rictus grin that holds for Man, no sense.
The hand is pressed against the door to sense
The life that lies beyond its wooden strips.
And there beyond, a corporal feels the urge to sing,
As though the face of death opens his lands
To none who do not stifle sounds to silence.
He’s stopped by gesture, held to quiet order.
The light is coming soon, no thief of order,
But slowly felt, and slower called to senses.
The door is failing and - the held-in silence
Is failing too, but not to song - the stripping,
Unending screams and pleas that mostly land
On deader ears than theirs. And then She sings.
Nightmarish song, Sestina’s order stripped
Of noble sense. The door is gone, she lands
Her silent fist-falls, soaring as she sings.
Visions Through A Splintered Door.
In lands by sea the soldiers rant and sing
To stem the fear that life takes flight from order.
The visions of a burnt and bloodied land
No cause to speak in strength, no sign of sense.
The singing shrieks through doors, enough to strip
Soft courage from the weak ‘till all is silence.
And from the lucid dark, beneath that silence,
Still seconds from the note last cast to sing,
A view of skin and softness comes and strips
In motions slow, one limb, another. Order
And stately speed are present. Now there’s a sense,
A feel of eyes and teeth; the vision lands.
It stalks through silent halls and through the lands
Of lukewarm meals and guns left cold and silent.
By chairs that hold no souls, no breath, nor sense,
Nor sign of life, save cooling flesh that sings
An untrue song of warmth, when truth is, order
Has fled the bodies; left their sinews stripped.
The skin and softness slithers in, no strip
Of light to show its way, the Darkling lands
By inner doors, where someone whispers orders -
An irony of sound; a plea to silence.
A smile would come if lips were there to sing,
A rictus grin that holds for Man, no sense.
The hand is pressed against the door to sense
The life that lies beyond its wooden strips.
And there beyond, a corporal feels the urge to sing,
As though the face of death opens his lands
To none who do not stifle sounds to silence.
He’s stopped by gesture, held to quiet order.
The light is coming soon, no thief of order,
But slowly felt, and slower called to senses.
The door is failing and - the held-in silence
Is failing too, but not to song - the stripping,
Unending screams and pleas that mostly land
On deader ears than theirs. And then She sings.
Nightmarish song, Sestina’s order stripped
Of noble sense. The door is gone, she lands
Her silent fist-falls, soaring as she sings.