Trying on other poetry forms and finding the fit less than comfortable than my usual free-wheelin’ lyric style.  Just dictating the voices has always been so easy.  I saw, on the fb page, that the sestina was a prompt style last year and I gave it a try.  It was really hard to write with the set rules and predetermined words.

I thought I would share it anyway…in the spirit of “sucking it up” and getting ready to share whatever happens – for next week.

*sigh*

Here it is:

 

Memory 

It is the weight of bridges

cast in steel and concrete –

sinking deeper in places it should connect –

at the very least, allow us to pass over

those grimy, shadowed locales, surfacing

only when completely unnecessary.

The memories, unwanted and unnecessary,

tearing us apart rather than forming bridges;

constantly forcing shadows to keep surfacing –

shadows burnt into concrete.

Sift through the ash over

the place where flesh and bone connect –

or should connect –

but do no longer.  Grief is unnecessary

now – told to get over

it – to build bridges

from the world of the dead.  Concrete

wings keep our better angels from surfacing,

when surfacing

from the heaviness, and the desire to connect

to the living, is the concrete

pillar holding us up in unnecessary

discomfort.  Waiting for these bridges

to direct us over

the past; over

the ghosts continually surfacing

in twilight hours, bridges

day with night, where reality and dreams connect.

We want our brains to soothe, making it unnecessary

for a heart to be heavy; weighed by the concrete –

memory of concrete

moment – moments we are supposed to be over.

But, somehow, we pry open unnecessary

corners of the brain – forcing down what was surfacing

in order to survive…endeavoring to connect

to the world of flesh and blood which bridges

the suffocating concrete doubt, preventing us from surfacing

in places over the emptiness.  Connect,

in spite of unnecessary doubt, to the hope in bridges.

R. L. Elke

Aug. 5/16